


Last Writes

by Nope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-07
Updated: 2009-09-07
Packaged: 2019-04-29 03:19:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14463858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Sirius died. Then things got strange.





	Last Writes

_Were you, dear Reader, a wizard of any note, you would know that somewhere in London is an old, broken looking telephone box. Actually, you might know that much as a Muggle, but, if you were a wizard, you would also know that you could pick that phone up and a voice would ask you what your purpose is. Come on, let's try it. Pick up the phone. There you go!_

_Oh, wait, you have to enter a code first. Sorry, I always forget that bit. 6-2-4-4-2. It spells magic you know. Yes, it's terribly obvious but, on the other hand, why would you bother trying it in the first place? That's just how wizards roll, you know. They think Muggles are stupid and oblivious. Which they generally are, so there you go._

_Is it saying "Please state the nature of your visit?" yet?_

_Say "Department of Mysteries, please."_

_Look, you get a spiffy badge! Isn't that neat? Who doesn't love a badge? No, no, just pin it to your top. Going down!_

_Oh, sorry, did I not mention that bit? Yeah, it's a lift. Like in that telly show with the stupid guy detective and the lady detective. That's the one! Here we go, down into the Atrium. Lovely bit of statuary, isn't it? Just ignore all those fireplaces and the wizards looking at you funny -- you really should have worn some robes -- and head on over there to the big lift. Much more comfortable than the telephone box, isn't it? Don't worry, we're only going down one floor._

_No, no, don't look at the witch in the lift with you. That's an Auror, you know. You can tell by her clothes. She won't be interested in you. They only go after those who have turned to the Dark and you couldn't even light a wand. Not that there's anything wrong with that, ha ha!_

_This is our floor! Level Nine! Out you come then. Really, it's fine. Down this nice corridor. Okay, it's rather plain, but there are much worse corridors you could be in, let me tell you. See that nice black door. Open it up. Ooh, look at all those doors! Come in and close the one you came through behind you. Watch out for--_

_For the spinning. Sorry. Didn't get that in quick enough, did I! Look at them go around and around and around and boy, you wouldn't want to come in here drunk, would you? Or maybe you would. It's like a cheap fairground ride, really. Or throw up some coloured lights and it could be one of those Muggle disco things. Do you still have those?_

_Anyway, I suppose you're wondering where you are? It's a Mystery! Because you're in the Department of Mysteries, you see. No? No. Anyway, here is where all the strange and arcane research goes on into bizarre and often icky things. Behind these doors lie planets and fish tanks full of brains and a bell jar full of temporal distillate and one room filled entirely with orgies that can, sadly, only be unlocked by the Department Head. But you are not here for timey brainy planetary orgies, oh, no. You are here for Death!_

_Try not to look so scared, dear Reader._

_Here we are! The Death Chamber! Bloody gloomy old place, isn't it. A big, large, square, dimly lit room full of stone piers leading down into the pit. Down we go. Don't worry, nothing is going to leap out and bite you or anything. Down to the bottom. And now up again, onto that big dais there. This, dear Reader, is the Veil: a tattered black curtain hanging in an ancient stone archway that is quite possibly the physical embodiment of the separation between the worlds of the living and the dead._

_Much has been written about the Veil, most of it incredibly wrong or, at least, very, very, boring, and I won't recount it at this precise moment, because I'm sure you don't care. And even if you do, I don't particularly. No, there is something much more interesting about the Veil. People have passed through it, you know. Not just by dying, although that to. Actually, literally, passed under that arch, to vanish beyond mortal ken. What happens to them, you ask? Well, you didn't, but I'm going to say you did. What happens? That's the question, isn't it?_

_I think it's starting to wake up. It must have noticed you. Careful now. Can't you hear the whispering? Lean a little closer. Not too close! Not yet, at least. Just lean in, and listen. There are voices, so many voices. They seem to be whispering, don't they? They seem to be saying "Siri_

 

Chapter 1: Books With Faces

us!"

It was a pleasant enough voice, if you liked that sort of thing. A sort of musical, chiming, sing-song of a thing. It seemed to be calling his name. Sirius did what he always did in such a situation: he curled up tighter on himself and growled out something along the lines of "Bug'r'ff".

As usual, this had no appreciable effect.

"Sirius," the voice sang out again.

Sirius faked a snore.

The voice got rather more jangly. "Sirius Black!"

A hand stretched out of the pile that was Sirius and groped around until it found a wand. The hand lifted the wand, shook it, dropped it, picked it up, dropped it again, turned it around, picked it up the right way, and pointed it in the direction of the voice, all without Sirius opening his eyes.

"Bugger," Sirius said.

After a moment, he added, "Off."

There was quiet for a moment. It wasn't the quiet of someone going away, Sirius thought. It was the sort of quiet that you would get just before James tackled you with handfuls of snow, mud, dungbombs or, on one particular occasion, Muggle condoms filled to bursting with spray-cheese.

Man, did Sirius miss spray-cheese.

"SIRIUS BLACK!"

It was loud. It was very loud. It was rather like being shouted at by the entire London Philharmonic Orchestra while each one was playing a different version of Pachebel's Canon in D Major. He could feel his bones vibrate with the force of it. It took almost a whole minute for the echoes to fade away.

"Silencio," Sirius said.

He expected the normal tickle of magic, the warm feel of a happy, active wand, but there was none of that. What there was, was a sort of sheepish shake and a few half-hearted pops. Cracking an eye open, Sirius gave the wand a shake and tried again. Nothing.

"Lumos," he tried instead.

The wand turned very, very, very slightly more yellow than usual.

"That," Sirius said, "is not right."

"Sirius," chimed the voice again.

"Keep your hair on," Sirius said. He closed his eyes again, rolling over onto his back, where he proceeded to breathe heavily for a few moments. "Okay."

He carefully sat up. He cracked his eyes open. He closed them again.

"That's not right either," he said.

"Sirius," the voice sighed. It sounded like exasperated wind chimes.

"You're a very persistent musical my name calling thing," Sirius said, "but I think you should know that if I open my eyes and I'm still surrounded by nothing but white light, I'm going to be a bit put out, and I'm probably going to take it out on you."

Ever so carefully, he opened his eyes again. There was light all around him. It didn't seem to be coming from anywhere in particular; it was just there, illuminating the space, which was also white. The floor beneath him was white and also couldn't seem to make its mind up if it was directly beneath or a very long way beneath him; since in either case he didn't seem to be falling, Sirius left that alone for the minute. He looked up. Yep, white. He looked around. White, white, and more white.

"Oh, god," he said, waving his hands frantically in front of his face. "I've gone blind! I've gone-- No, hang on." He waved his hands again. "I can still see me. Okay, not blind. That's good. Big white space ... indetermined. Undetermined. Something. Bugger. Where's Remus when you need him?"

The voice didn't answer, although it did gave a small, impatient sort of hum.

"I'm getting to you," Sirius said. "Okay. Either someone has taken the world away, or they've taken me away, or it's an illusion of some sort, which would actually go with the kidnap theory, orrrr. Something."

He winced, stretching awkwardly and rubbing his chest.

"Bloody hell. What was I doing last ... whenever?" Sirius rubbed his mouth and then pulled a face. "Ugh." There was a terrible taste in his mouth, a sort of dry, fuzzy, cloth like taste. He hoped he hadn't eaten something weird as Padfoot. Sometimes doggy instincts took over.

(Which should have told you something when Peter was a rat, said the little nagging voice in his head which sounded sometimes like Remus and sometimes like his mother, but mostly like himself at seventeen. He ignored it, as he had since it had started getting loud a few years into Azkaban.)

Lifting his wand to his mouth he carefully enunciated "Aguamenti!" A single drop of water formed at the wands tip. Sirius licked it away with annoyance and tried again. Another drop. At this rate he would be here all day.

There was a musical note. He waved a quelling hand at it, giving his wand a hard stare.

"Now, you listen here, wand," Sirius said, "I don't know where I am or what's going on, but I'm buggered if I'm going to let myself be bossed around by either Musical Belle over there, or you, you inanimate stick of whatever wood you are--"

He frowned. He had definitely known that at one point. He could remember laughing with James about it in a train carriage. Except while he could remember there was an argument, he couldn't actually remember any of the details. Stupid Azkaban. Stupid Dementors. Stupid wherever the hell he was. Stupid wand.

Oh, right.

"So bloody give me some sodding water," Sirius said, shaking it hard and then raising it so he could glare at the tip. "Have you got that?"

There was a noise like a string of fairy bells giggling. Sirius cursed under his breath, and then raised his wand again. "Aguamenti!"

A torrent of ice-cold water crashed down over him, knocking him down and soaking him to bone. Sirius swallowed, coughed and spluttered, getting his hands in front of the blast still coming from the dropped wand. Crawling through the rapidly growing puddle, he made repeated snatches for the wand, getting face after face full for his trouble, until finally his scrabbling fingers caught it and he managed to choke out a "Finite!" or five to stop it.

Dripping and shivering, he swore at length, starting with the usual "bloody", carrying on through "buggering" and its ilk, taking a side-trip through the more esoteric Gobbledegook he'd picked up over the years before swinging back to a crescendo of the old, comfortable standbys that ended in a "FUCK!" that echoed away into infinity.

"Right," said Sirius eventually, wiping at his face. He shook himself out like a dog, sending water spraying every which way. It wasn't quite the same as a stream of invective, but it felt good and, anyway, he was sure he'd gotten it out of his system. Which was Remus's fault for not letting him swear around the kids, really. Obviously it had built up. "Right. First of all--"

There was a forlorn jangle.

"Belle!" Sirius swung around. There was nothing but white, of course. Well, white and the water, which managed to be a very pale blue. Shouldn't it be colourless?

(He had a sudden clear memory of himself and Remus by the lake, shoulder to shoulder in the shadow of some broad tree, while Remus talked about waves and refraction and Sirius watched pale, shaky hands sketch shapes out in the dappled sunlight.)

The forlorn noise came again, though it was more of a sploshy burble now than a jangle, which made Sirius look down. Floating in the puddle was a very sodden looking book with a gold cover. At first, he thought there was nothing on it, but, as he bent down to pick it up, he realised that there was a face on it. It wasn't much of one, just the sketch outline of eyes, nose and mouth, just barely embossed into the cover, but it was definitely a face of some sort, and Sirius eyed it suspiciously.

"Is that you, Belle?" he asked.

By way of reply, the book spat a small stream of water into the air.

"Right then," Sirius said. "Bite me and I'll break your spine."

He gingerly picked the book up by one corner. It was unpleasantly soggy under his fingers more like holding thick jelly than paper or parchment. When he squeezed it, water sloshed out like a sponge. He carefully opened the book. The pages were all covered in black and blue smudges; he could make out a letter here and there but no words, and a handful of Ds and Cs told him nothing. Neither did the book appear to have a title, although, as he turned it around to look, the face slid from front to back cover to keep watching him.

Sirius laughed, delighted, turning the book this way and that to watch the face stretch and squish and spin around, until finally it gave him a withering glare and burbled "Sirius!"

"You," Sirius said, "are a talking book."

The book's face clearly said 'No shit.'

"If you think I'm taking lip from a talking book, you are very much mistaken, my soggy friend," Sirius said.

The book made a challenging noise. Sirius eyed it. The book eyed him right back.

"In the pocket with you!" Sirius yelled and started shoving it into his wet pocket. The book kept twisting and curling in his hands, and the whole soggy robes thing wasn't helping either, but Sirius had had a long time to perfect being stubborn and, with a triumphant roar, he shoved it inside and slapped the flap closed.

Only then did it occur to him to wonder: since when had his robes had pockets?

He took a careful look down at himself. The wet hair hanging in his eyes appeared to be black although it was, as mentioned, wet, so this wasn't as much of a surety as one might think. He was not, in fact, wearing robes, but rather had a long brown, pinstriped jacket on over a black waistcoat over a much darker brown (similarly pinstriped) shirt, all of which were clinging to him in a damp, uncomfortable fashion. His similarly brown trousers hung down over the tops of his thick-soled leather boots. Small chains hung from his waistcoat pockets, which was a little odd as, when he checked, they had nothing on the ends of them.

"All pocket and no watch," Sirius muttered to himself.

He eyed his wand speculatively. A drying charm would be good about now. On the other hand, once half-drowned, twice shy as the saying probably never went. Slipping it into his sleeve, he looked around. Everything was still white and uniform, save for the puddle of water. He frowned at his reflection, trying to work out if he looked right. He was too old, or too young. Too something.

Sirius kicked the puddle to turn his face into ripples and noticed, as he did so, that the water was, ever so slowly, trickling away from him. The ground, or whatever it was that was currently passing for ground in the sense of holding him and the water up, appeared to be very slightly sloping.

"Down," he mused out loud, "or up. Down or up." He turned around slowly, and then fast, and then set his back to the puddle. "Up!"

He set off resolutely, humming a jaunty tune and trying to ignore the way his boots were making squish-squish noises as he went, which, Sirius felt, rather ruined the drama of the thing.

There was an inquisitive hum from the book. He smacked his pocket until it stopped.

White went the world, and more white. White above him and below him, in front of him and to his sides. If he looked back, he could see the puddle getting smaller and smaller, until it was only visible by the faint blue of reflected light and then not even that. He looked forward again. White. He walked into it. He walked on it. He walked under it. White, white, and white again.

"Azkaban was more interesting than this," Sirius said.

He walked and walked and walked. Without any markers, there was no real way of telling if he was getting anywhere. He was almost certain he was still heading up, but the gradient was so slight and the lack of anything to judge by so obvious, that it could all have been in his head.

"Perhaps it is in my head," he mused. "I could be in a coma. It happens, you know." He did know. He was talking to himself, for one thing. "Perhaps I've gone mad. I thought I would, times before. In that dark cell with the Dementors all around me, clinging on to hate to keep me through."

He walked some more. Time passed, or maybe it didn't. Who could tell?

"Actually," Sirius said, coming to a halt, "this is still better than Azkaban. And why am I still wet?"

It wasn't particularly cold. It wasn't particularly warm, either. His clothes get sticking to him and then peeling away as he moved, leaving new, cold, damp patches each time.

"Bugger it." He pulled his coat off and dropped it on the floor, ignoring the startled beep from the book, and took his waist-coat off too. Holding his wand between his teeth, he unbuttoned his shirt -- was he supposed to have tattoos? Why couldn't he remember clearly? -- and dropped that too.

Aiming his wand over the pile, he tried a simple drying charm. As expected, nothing happened. Nodding to himself, Sirius tried "Incendio!" which had been practically the first charm he had learned. A weak jet of flame came out the tip of his wand and vanished into nothingness.

"Not bad," he said. "Not brilliant, but not bad. Just have to be careful, that's all."

He knelt down, pulling a face as he trousers squished up around his knees and fresh trickles of water ran down his calves into his sodden boots. Holding his wand level over the clothes, he cast "Incendio!" again. Thin flames flickered from the tip, and then a proper jet that shot forward a few feet like a torch. He could feel the heat billowing back towards him and he lowered the fire as close to his clothes as he dared. To what he would never admit was his surprise, the coat started steaming.

"Take that, Remus!" Sirius laughed.

His plans were, in actual fact, awesome, and hardly ever went wrong, at least not in unentertaining ways. Well, okay, except that one terrible prank on Snivellus because he didn't think it through enough on account of the firewhiskey and James and Lily and Remus and Snivellus being a giant walking dungbomb covered in grease and owl poo and--

And his coat was on fire. Fuck!

Sirius leapt back to his feet, shaking his wand out and jumping on the flames, glad he'd kept his boots on. The book gave a ringing yelp, so he stomped on it as well. In case it was on fire and he hadn't noticed, obviously. Snatching up his shirt, he wrung it out over the still smouldering coat until the last wisps of smoke were gone, before dropping it and sitting heavily.

"Why," he asked plaintively, "is everything so complicated?"

The book warbled his name.

"Shut it," Sirius snapped. "Or say something other than just 'Sirius Black' all the time. You're as bad as my mother."

There was an inquisitive ding.

"I am not talking to a book," Sirius insisted. "Never trust inanimate objects with faces. I still have a scar from where that bloody eagle knocker took a peck out of my--"

He meant to say 'arm', but he was looking at it, and there was no scar. There should have been though. He definitely remembered being pecked while he was trying to woo that bird whose name he could never remember, which probably had a great deal to do with his continued failure. Lovely chestnut hair and big knockers. He frowned at his other arm, turning it this way and that to check, and then looked back at the first arm and was rather put out to notice the scar, half-way between his wrist and his elbow.

"You've gone a bit doolallly, Sirius, old mate," he muttered. "Keep it together, now."

He contemplated the wet clothes. They lay there, damply, promising to go on hard and cling in undesirable ways to undesirable places.

"On the other hand," Sirius mused, "it's not like there's anyone else around here."

He fumbled at the laces of his boots and finally gave up, working and yanking them off each foot in turn. His swollen socks followed, and his trousers, which had to be rolled down instead of pulled off. Sirius considered for a moment, and then slipped his thumbs under the waistband of his boxers and pulled those down as well. They weren't particularly wet, but what the hell.

"What do you think of that, eh?" Sirius shook himself out, tousled his damp hair and posed, fists on hips. "Hot stuff!"

There was no reply, not even from the book.

Sighing, he spread his clothes out on the ground and then his own naked self. It was rather like lying on glass, cool, flat and unyielding. He shifted, trying to get comfortable and finally just gave up, lying their awkwardly, staring at the sky.

It wasn't, he realised after a while, flat white. It was more like... It was like looking into a glass of water just after it had had streams of milk poured into it, and they were all still swirling and mixing around, layers of white over white. Sirius had a sudden craving for marble cake.

(Lily had made it. She had always been a good cook, which she said came of being good at potions, but Sirius wasn't that bad at potions and he was a terrible cook, so he thought it might just have been a Lily thing. Poor Lily. And Harry had giggled all over the place and gotten himself completely covered somehow

(--Harry, grown, was running towards him, jumping down steps, wand out, screaming his name--)  
and James had let Sirius take Harry for his bath, and he'd promised him, he'd promised, I'll always be there for you, always, but then he'd given them Peter and Peter had, Peter had, Peter had

("THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED," he roared. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!")  
and, anyway, that was all long past now. Azkaban was over and done with. You-Know-Who would be revealed soon, and Pettigrew, and he would be allowed out of that stupid fucking house to fight and everything would be just like before, but better. Everything would be better.)

"Harry," said Sirius, and opened his eyes.

Everything was the same but somehow the pure white gleam had gained a sinister edge, almost mocking him with its eerie calm. Sirius pushed himself awkwardly up, having to peel himself away from the ground where his damp skin had stuck. He eyed his clothes for a second, but there was no way he was putting the wet things back. Instead, he took the belt from his trousers, wrapped everything up in his coat, and tied the bundle together with the belt. He used the free end as a carry handle, keeping his wand in his other hand.

"Si. Ri. Us." The book sang out, its voice muffled by the package. Sirius punched it a few times until the book stopped.

"I have to go and find Harry," he told it. "He's my godson. He needs me." And since there was no-one else around, he could admit, "And I need him. We're all the family we've got now."

There was a faint chime, but no verbal response, and Sirius decided to take that as assent. He set off again, up the gentle slope, striding with purpose now. Something would reveal itself, he was sure, and if it didn't, well, he'd take his chances with magic and start blasting things and if they didn't work, it was Apparation all the way, splinching be damned.

It took him a while to notice, perhaps because it took a while to change, but the white ahead of him no longer seemed to be a glow at an indeterminate distance, but thicker, closer, more cloud like. He lengthened his stride. It was definitely closer. Faint stray tendrils of bright mist curled vaguely towards him like half-hearted fog. He realised the slope was getting steeper too. He started running forward as it tilted up under his feet, throwing himself forward.

The white fog got thicker and the ground got steeper, thicker and steeper, thicker and steeper, and Sirius laughed breathlessly around his wand, pushing himself on. When the slope got so steep that he was slipping back even in his bare feet, he put his wand back in his mouth, and tied the belt-handle to his wrist. Throwing himself down onto elbows and knees, Sirius started crawling, pulling himself up and on.

He could hear noises in the fog now, noises that could have been the whisper of wind through the trees, of the soft rustle of distant voices. He clambered towards them desperately, taking his wand in hand now, trying to call out. The fog was too thick to take a breath, wet in his lungs, oddly warm against his face, greasy like the feel of the air before a thunderstorm. He forced himself onwards, coughing and laughing, laughing and coughing and crawling until suddenly there was no ground under him at all.

For an impossible moment, he found himself hanging in a mist the exact colour of moonlight glimpsed through the leaves of the Forbidden Forest with the eyes of dog, the colour of the full moon, of curse and freedom and running without thought but the running, endless, glorious running.

He fell. He hit; another slope, this one aimed down, too steep to grip. His bundle of clothes was torn from his wrist leaving a red, stinging welt. He clutched his wand desperately to his chest, curling himself up around it protectively as he fell and hit, bounced and rolled, down and down into a sudden jarring halt. Stars burst in his head, all the old familiar constellations, the Black lights, Cygnus, Pollux, Bellatrix

("Come on, you can do better than that!")  
and, no, what was--

The bright mist was clearing. No, rather, it was forming, Sirius decided, drawing together and thickening into trunks and branches and leaves, into grass and earth beneath him and a wide, starry sky over him, hung with gibbous moon, and into a slim, familiar boy with the haughty good-looks of that most ancient and most noble of houses.

"Oh," the boy said, as the mist settled around him in Slytherin colours. "It's you."

Sirius stared.

"Why are you naked? Good grief, do you have no manners at all?" The boy sniffed. "Really, Sirius, you could at least say hello to your own brother."

 

Chapter 2: He Ain't Heavy

"Regulus," Sirius said.

"Oh, you remember then," Regulus sneered. "I'd hate to tax whatever passes for your brain these days." 

"Regulus," said Sirius again. "You're dead."

"Well, obviously!" Regulus threw his hands up in annoyance. "Did you give yourself sodding concussion? Trust Sirius sodding Black to do the sodding impossible!"

"Stop trying to swear," Sirius snapped. "You were always bloody useless at it. When you were alive. Which you are not."

Regulus sighed and pinched the brow of his nose. "Inbreeding will out. I always tried to to tell Mother, but she'd never listen. You know she wanted me to marry that dreadful cousin of ours. Good political will, she called it. I just about died."

"You did die. And our mum was a crazy old cow," Sirius said, sitting up properly. His wand was, fortunately, intact. He looked around for his clothes, adding, "And that's an insult to crazy old cows."

"There's really no call for you to be speaking of her like--" Regulus pulled a face. "Oh, good lord, man, will you put some trousers on?"

"I seem to have misplaced my clothes," Sirius said.

"It's summers in Bahrain all over again," Regulus complained, pointedly turning away.

"That just goes to prove my point. Who takes vacations in Bahrain of all places? I would've much rather stayed home and played Quidditch for a month with James but no, it's all, ancient culture this, and wizarding roots that, and Sirius, if you bring up that Muggle-loving blood traitor once more I shall disown you for good!"

"And she did," Regulus said.

"Yeah." Sirius stared at him. "Did I mention that you were dead?"

"Did I mention that you were a moron?"

"Quite possibly." Sirius nodded.

"You're still naked," Regulus whined.

"What do you want me to do, Reg?" Sirius sneered. "Tie a big leaf to my knob?"

He waggled his hips pointedly. Regulus's eyes automatically dropped to watch the swing and then squeezed tight shut, a pained expression twisting his features.

"You can start by never saying 'knob' again. And it's 'Regulus'," he added. "I don't call you 'Si' do I?"

Still looking for his clothes, Sirius answered absently, "No, because that would be stupid."

Regulus sighed. "Just think yourselves up some clothes. I think even you could manage robes." Sirius stared at him blankly. "For the love of-- Didn't you read the book?"

"The book! Of course!" Sirius cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled. "OI! BELLE!"

There was an answering hum of "Sirius!" from the undergrowth off to his side, and he bounded towards it before coming to a sudden halt and swinging back to glare suspiciously at Regulus.

"How do you know about the book?" he asked.

"Clothes!" Regulus grunted out through clenched teeth.

Sirius gave him a 'We're not done with this' glare, and dug his clothes out of the small bushes that had sprung up. The belt had become undone, scattering articles, but he found the coat, trousers and his boots readily enough.

"Ugh. Still wet, though." He considered his wand. "I could try a summoning charm. How wrong could that go? What do you think, Reg?"

Regulus plucked an invisible speck of lint from his robes, carefully looking away. "If exercises in futility excite you, by all means, please, continue to waste my time."

"You're dead," Sirius said. "What do you need time for?"

Regulus rolled his eyes.

Sirius grinned and flicked his wand. "Accio clothes!"

His shirt shot out of the trees, and he grabbed for it, ducking out of the way as his underwear came whizzing afterwards. There was a wet smack and Sirius turned in time to watch them drop from Regulus's cheek to his shoulder, and then slide down his chest.

There was a long quiet and then Sirius cracked up, doubling over with the force of his laughter.

"I hate you," Regulus said with quiet venom. "I sodding hate you, Sirius."

Sirius couldn't have said why, but this just made him laugh harder. He fell over and rolled around in the grass, chortling and giggling, revelling in the scratchy feel of it against this skin, the rising smell of it all around him, fresh and alive. Slowly the laughter faded to a smile, as he looked up through the leaves at the bright moon and there, beyond it (and over a bit), the Dog Star.

"There I am," he said softly. "Wherever you are, Harry, just look up. I'll come back, I promise."

Regulus snorted softly. Sirius pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around. Regulus was sat on the ground a little distance away, his back half-turned to Sirius, half-leaning against a tree.

"Aw, don't be like that," Sirius said.

"I'm not being like anything," Regulus said tonelessly.

"It was funny, though," Sirius insisted, rolling over so he could push himself up. His legs were covered in pieces of broken grass and he grinned as brushed them away.

"Your problem," said Regulus, and then, "one of your many problems is an inability to grasp that if something is funny to you, it might not be funny to everyone else."

(Remus was saying, "Sirius thought it would be - er - amusing to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk..."

("It wasn't like that," Sirius tried to say.

"So what was it like?" Remus yelled. "Tell me, Sirius, what was it like?!")  
"So that's why Snape doesn't like you," said Harry slowly, "because he thought you were in on the joke?")

"Hey," Sirius said, "I'm sorry, okay?"

"No, you're not," Regulus said.

"Don't be like that." Sirius got up, coming closer. "It was an accident."

"It's always an 'accident', a 'slip', just 'playing around'. I've heard them all before, Sirius."

"Reg-- Regulus--"

"And you're still naked, aren't you?"

"My clothes are wet!"

Regulus sniffed. "Only because you think they are."

"That and I drenched them with aguamenti," Sirius said, and hastily swung his wand away when it started to drip. "I don't know what is wrong with this thing. Half the time it doesn't work, and half the time it's turned up to eleven."

"I don't know what that means," Regulus complained.

"'Turned up to eleven'?" Sirius shrugged. "It's just a saying. Means beyond the maximum. All the way and then some."

"Muggle, I suppose."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Sirius said, irritated by the dismissive tone.

"There are so many things wrong with--" Regulus broke off, and then leaned around the tree to stare at Sirius. "You've been doing magic with your wand and it worked?"

"Yes?" Sirius was confused. "That's how we usually do it."

"Your wand, though," Regulus repeated with an air of disbelief.

"I am a wizard, you know," Sirius pointed out.

("What kind of a wizard are you?" Walburga screamed.)

("What kind of a wizard are you?" Dumbledore asked politely.)

("What kind of a wizard are you?" Remus asked sadly.)  
"Wand magic doesn't work here," Regulus said.

Sirius considered this and then shook his head. "Yes it does. I just did it."

"You probably just think you did," Regulus decided, face clearing. "That's how it works. See, look, your clothes are dry."

"What?" Sirius turned to find his coat, hung up on a branch. It was indeed dry to the touch. "But it was wet," he said, stupidly. "And burnt and torn up and--"

He blinked at the coat. It dripped. He could see the tree beyond it through a charred hole.

"No," said Regulus patiently. "Remember it being dry and fixed."

Sirius blinked again. Yep. Dry and fixed coat.

"Did you just do wandless magic?" he asked.

Regulus pinched the brow of his nose again. "How often do I have to have the same conversation?"

"Until you start making sense," Sirius said, finding the rest of his clothes were dry, warm, and crinkle free, like they had just come back from the House Elves. "Ah-hah!" he crowed, pulling them on as he went on, "You have a House Elf!"

"No," said Regulus, "you're dead."

"You're dead," Sirius said, searching around for his belt and finding it looped around a stump. He'd never managed to put back on all the weight he'd lost in Azkaban and all his trousers hung loosely about his hips, threatening to fall at any moment, without something to hold them up. "I may not remember everything clearly, but I'm pretty certain on that score. Dementors couldn't take that from me."

Regulus started to say something, and then stopped. He frowned at Sirius, who missed this entirely because he was fumbling at his shirt cuffs. How were you supposed to do these one-handed?

In the sudden silence, an annoyed, jingling mutter of "Sirius Black, Sirius Black" could be made out coming from Sirius's pocket.

"Oh, yeah." Sirius pulled the book out and waved it at Regulus. "What's all this about, then? Why do you know what's going on? And what are you doing walking around dead, anyway? You're too solid for a ghost and very slightly more articulate than an Inferi."

Regulus winced.

"What?" asked Sirius.

"Your appalling lack of deductive reasoning is probably why you're dead," Regulus said.

"No," said Sirius, shaking his head. "We did that one. You're the dead one, remember. You and Dad and good old Uncle Cygnus and, you know, seventy-nine was a bad year all around, really."

"That's easy for you to say. You spent the year swanning around in James Potter's back pocket, laughing it up and having a jolly old jape of a time, and I spent it being killed by the undead and dragged into a lake where my body could be used as a puppet guard dog for all eternity."

Sirius stared at him. "You what?"

"And this, this," Regulus said heatedly, "is exactly what I'm talking about. You didn't even take time out to find out exactly how I died. I mean, I was only your sodding brother. It's not like I was ever important to you."

"You buggered off to join that tosspot and his Death Eaters," Sirius said. "Pardon me if I don't feel bad because you're a fucking idiot."

The book jangled loudly. "Black!"

"Back in the pocket for you!" Sirius cried. The book gave an apologetic ting to no avail.

"You suck," said Regulus. "And not in the good way."

"Actually," Sirius started, smirking. A giant cream-covered cake smashed him in the face. He wiped goop from his eyes, swearing.

"Remember my fifth birthday?" Regulus asked, hefting another cake. "I do!"

He feinted. Sirius dodged the wrong way and got caught in the face again.

"Not so funny now, is it?" Regulus yelled. Mist formed about his hands, coalescing into another of the cake.

"How-- What-- Why--" Sirius batted the cake away with his hand. "Where are you even getting those from?!"

"The interstitial realm is psycho-reactive," Regulus said primly.

Sirius stared. "Did you swallow a dictionary? Oi! Stop throwing cakes at me!"

"You'd know all this if you'd bothered to read your book," Regulus said. "And, certainly, if you wish. Here, let me help you clean up."

Sirius's eyes widened at the sudden bucket, but he barely reached the W in "Wait!" before he was once again drenched from head to foot in-- He sniffed, and then licked the back of his hand experimentally. "Did you just throw a bucket of pumpkin juice at me?"

"Yes," said Regulus. "Yes, I did."

Sirius shook himself, sending droplets flying. "What are you, three?"

"I've been eighteen since nineteen-seventy-nine," Regulus snapped. "Also, remember my first year at Hogwarts?"

Sirius considered, and then shrugged. "No."

"If you did," Regulus said darkly, "you would know that that was well deserved!"

"Way to hold a grudge," Sirius said, frowning at his clothes. "Dry! Dry? Be dry! Damn it, how are you doing all that wandless crap?"

"I told you," Regulus started.

"Did dying give you powers that mortal men know not of?"

"No. Well, technically, yes. But you have them too, on account of your own unfortunate demise. This," said Regulus loudly when Sirius started to protest this, "is why you have the book. Like mine."

He reached inside his robes and pulled out a book. It was slim, small thing, black leather bound and tastefully decorated in dark green curlicues. There was no face on the cover but instead a small title in a neat serif font said "You're Dead" over a smaller subtitle of "A Guide for Those Who Are Passing On".

"Does yours sing all the time?" Sirius asked.

Regulus rolled his eyes. "Hardly. The Guide alters itself to match its owner, just as the world around us alters to match our expectations or, in this case, yours, because you have roughly the same skills at compromise as an Antimelodian Yak. If you ask me what that is, I am going to cake you again."

"I wasn't going to," Sirius lied.

"You, apparently, visualise your afterlife as involving trees." Regulus shuddered delicately. "If this is a sex thing, I would appreciate you never explaining it ever."

"It's the Forbidden Forest," Sirius said, only realising it as he said it. "I was just thinking about it. Best nights of my life. All us Marauders, out there under the full moon, running with Moony."

"Do you know what the best night of my life was?" Regulus asked.

"No," said Sirius.

"No, you sodding well don't," Regulus yelled.

"That was enlightening, cheers," Sirius said. "And I'm still covered in pumpkin juice, which is rather sticky and gross. Bugger it." He waved his wand at himself. "Aguamenti!"

Drip, drip, drip, went the wand.

"So, basically, everything is against me, is it?" Sirius asked.

"Yes," said Regulus.

"That was rhetorical."

"Do you even know what that means?"

"I went to school with Remus Lupin for seven years," Sirius pointed out. "I know what lots of things mean."

"Oh, yes. The werewolf. I mean, hell," Regulus sneered, "could you be any more obvious?" Sirius stared at him blankly. "Perhaps I should have said oblivious. Let's try this again, shall we? From the top. One: you are dead."

"No I'm not," said Sirius, who was very sure on this matter. "I'm breathing and I have a pulse and everything."

"Two: both you and your surroundings are being bent by your preconceived and frankly ridiculously ingrained conceptions of them. To whit--"

"I've just remembered why I picked on you so much in school," Sirius mused.

"To whit! Your clothes! This forest! Your continued attempts to use your wand, which brings us to Three: wand magic doesn't work here, because it requires a body, which you don't have, because of One: you are dead!"

"I have a body," Sirius said. "It's covered in pumpkin juice. Damn it, what's the one Molly was always using? Oh, yes! Scourgify!"

The blast knocked him off his feet. When he could see again, blinking away floating negative images of trees, Sirius found that, not only was he clean, but all the colour had been bleached out of his clothes, he was clean shaven, his hair had been cut, a wide circle of grass under him had been neatly trimmed and raked, and the branches above had been pruned back, so that now they were in a clearing filled with moonlight and star-shine.

"Bloody hell," Sirius managed.

"Wand magic! That was wand magic!" Regulus complained. "That was real sodding wand magic. That's just sodding typical. Sirius sodding Black; always has to be sodding different!"

"Stop saying 'sodding'," Sirius said. "It makes you sound like an idiot."

"You always have to special, don't you? First Black in Gryffindor, friend of mudbloods and werewolves -- every single thing you do, an act of rebellion against a family who never did anything except try to love you. Mother cried when you left!"

"Tears of joy, maybe," Sirius sneered. "And if you believe that, it's no wonder you threw your life away."

"You have no idea what I did," Regulus yelled. "You weren't there. You were never there! I tried, you know. I came to you, and you laughed at me, you and your friends. You laughed and you played sick jokes and then you just sodding well forgot about me!"

Sirius blinked at him slowly.

"Well?!" Regulus snapped.

"I never forgot about you," Sirius said quietly. "I did a lot of things, I lost a lot of things, but I never forgot about you."

They stared at each other, neither willing to look away. Regulus had his mother's eyes, Sirius noted, as black as his hair, not grey like Sirius, or like his father. Orion had had stormy eyes. They gave away what his face did not, lit rarely with laughter or joy, more often beacons of disapproval and rage in a face as set as stone. His father had strengthened the spells on the family's home, buried them in magical defences, and what had it served them? Nothing. The rot had set in long ago.

"They lied to us," Sirius said. "That's all they ever did. Maybe they didn't mean to, maybe they thought it was for our own good, but it doesn't matter. That's what it comes down to. They lied."

"Not to me," Regulus said. "Never to me."

"Yeah, well." Sirius clambered back to his feet. "Man, up and down, up and down, seems like I've all I've done today."

"What's 'yeah, well' supposed to mean?" Regulus asked heatedly. "They never lied to me."

"Seems to me they didn't have to. You just lied to yourself. And look where that got you." Sirius waved a hand at Regulus.

Regulus glared back. "Talking of people lying to themselves, you're still dead. You can't be here unless you're dead. That's how it works. You die, you come here, you get your guide--" He waved the book. "--and you wander around until you move on."

"On where?" said Sirius, and then, not waiting for an answer, "Wait, you've been hanging out in the Forbidden Forest since seventy-nine?"

"Do you ever actually listen to anything anybody else says?" Regulus asked. "No, really, I'm not trying to be funny; I'd genuinely like to know."

"You're not too old to be spanked," Sirius said.

"Time passes differently here," Regulus explained, ignoring this. "In a certain sense, it doesn't really pass at all. It's all in the book."

"My book got wet," Sirius admitted. "And it kept singing. Who reads a singing book?"

Regulus sighed, pinching the brow of his nose. "The guide book takes its form from you. I told you this. Mine looks like my favourite notebook from Hogwarts--"

"You had a favourite notebook?"

"Are you laughing at me? Again?!"

"I was laughing with you?"

"I'd tell you to die if you weren't already dead."

"I really wish you'd stop that," Sirius complained.

"You used to have a musical book," Regulus said. "Mother bought it for you, remember. Mostly because you cried in the store until she gave in, which was very Slytherin of you."

"Fuck you," said Sirius heatedly.

"It was a rework of the Tales of Beedle the Bard," Regulus said. "Don't you remember? You carried it with you everywhere for ages. You must have been, what, five? Six?"

"You'd've been two," Sirius countered. "Who the hell remembers stuff from when they were two?"

Regulus sneered. "Given you seem to be unable to remember things from a few moments ago, clearly not you."

"I told you," Sirius huffed. "I was in Azkaban. I lost some things. Good things, mostly."

He frowned. Something was nagging at the back of his head, something about the tales. James had said something, about the Peverells and the Potters. And, no, before that, Remus had asked him about an old, tatty book. Yes, that was it. They'd accidentally wiped Remus's potions text and he'd demanded Sirius's, gone looking for it in his trunk, and found the other book as well.

"Huh," Sirius said. "I really did have a singing book. Weird." He grinned. "That was where we got the idea to put talking bits in the map, except we couldn't get it right, until Remus came up with a way to do it with words instead of sound. Moony, Padfoot and Prongs."

"And Wormtail," Regulus pointed out.

"That rat bastard," Sirius swore. Regulus smirked. "Pun not intended. Bugger." Sirius frowned. "Wait, how do you know about that? I'm pretty sure you were dead before Peter betrayed us. If he was doing it that far back, I'm going to kill him twice."

"The dead can't kill the living," Regulus said. "But we can watch them if we want. There are Memory Pools."

"Memory Pools," repeated Sirius sceptically. "Are we talking pensieves?"

Regulus considered this and then nodded. "In a way. If you imagine a pensieve with the memories of everyone who ever lived and possibly who ever will, then, yes."

"Bollocks."

"You are so cultured and refined; I can't think why so many people wanted you dead. Oh!" Regulus beamed. "Which one was it, then? I had my money on your werewolf snapping one day."

"Remus would never do that!" Sirius growled out.

Although, actually, he might have done. Everyone thought of Remus as the calm one, the sensible one, but Sirius knew there was a dark streak under it. He liked to think of it as the werewolf bleeding through, because that meant he didn't have to blame Remus for anything.

"Anyway," Sirius added, "I'm still not dead."

"What's the last thing you remember then?" Regulus asked.

Sirius promptly replied "You asking me a stupid question," and grinned when Regulus rolled his eyes. "Before this, you mean? I was in that stupid house, arguing with your bloody stupid House Elf, and, uh."

And what, Sirius, he asked himself. Everything was murky, like trying to see through inky water.

Regulus distracted him by saying "Kreacher" in a way that was somehow both sad and happy at the same time. "He's still alive? How is he?"

"He's a vicious little crazy evil bastard as always," Sirius said. "What did you expect?"

"Fuck you," said Regulus, just as heatedly as Sirius had earlier, so eerily similar that the tone distracted Sirius from the content for a full five seconds.

"See?" he said. "That's how you swear."

"Kreacher was a just and loyal servant, who suffered willingly for the cause, and I will not have you besmirch him in such an oafish fashion," Regulus said stiffly.

Sirius just laughed. "What are you going to do? Smack me in the face with a glove and demand wands at dawn?"

"No," said Regulus. "I'm just going to leave. Goodbye, Sirius. I'm sorry we met again, to be honest. I don't know why I thought you might have grown up a bit over the years."

Sirius was still trying to formulate a response when Regulus turned gracefully on his heel and stalked away between the trees. Sirius stared at Regulus's back, held so stiff it was a wonder the boy's spine didn't snap.

"Oi!" he yelled. "Don't be like that!"

"I am like that," Regulus said without turning back. "I said goodbye, Sirius."

He kept going.

"You're a fine one to talk about maturity, Reg-- Regulus! Regulus! Argh!" Sirius kicked the ground. The book trilled, and he smacked it.

"Fine," he muttered. "I don't need you anyway. Never did, never will. Stupid bloody wanking fucking brother--"

He kicked a tree and then cursed as leaves and twigs rained down on him. The trees gave no response. The book, for once, was silent. He looked around. The stars were cold, the moonlight empty. Regulus's foot prints were all that marked the grass.

"Oh, damn," said Sirius, and hurried off after them.

 

Chapter 3: Hollow Men and Pool Boys

The trees thinned out after a while, though they did not clear completely, rising here and there from the endless, impossibly green grass. Somehow, they always managed to get between him and Regulus, who was moving at a fair pace, a swirl of black, silver and Slytherin between the mossy browns of the tree trunks. Only the pulled down grass and the distant sound of angry muttering kept the trail alive.

Sirius couldn't have said why he was following, not really, only that he had to. It gave him purpose, perhaps, or he was substituting Regulus for Harry, as that bossy school ma'am friend of his godson might put it.

("--vicarious living is dangerous and unhealthy," Hermione said. "He's a threat--"

("--out of context," Remus said with forced calm. "You can't--"

But he could.)  
But he was.)

There was movement ahead and Sirius hurried forward, expecting Regulus but instead coming on an all-but-transparent figure so suddenly Sirius passed right through it. The shock of cold sent him stumbling, only a handy tree keeping him up.

"Suh-suh-sorry," he managed to get out.

"Worst hunt in my life," the figure said. Even its voice was thin.

"Uh," said Sirius. "Sorry?" he tried again.

"Well, obviously," said the figure, walking towards him. It was wearing robes in a very drab, traditional style that could have been anywhere from a hundred to a thousand years old. Shoulder length curls framed an oval face that could have been male, female, both, or neither. Sirius dodged out of the way and it passed him, stepping half into the tree he'd been leaning in before stopping and saying, "I don't know, are they?"

"Are who what?" Sirius asked.

"I've always said so," it said, before turning slightly and lifting a hand. "Hello there, old chap!"

"Me? No, not me." Sirius frowned and then dodged back around to the front of the figure and waved his hand in its face. There was no obvious response. "You can't see or hear me, can you? That's-- Well. I don't know what it is, but--"

He yelped as the figure suddenly moved forward, passing through his waving hand. Clutching his half-frozen limb to his chest, Sirius watched the figure amble away, talking amiably to nothing Sirius could see.

"Yeah, okay, that was weird." He frowned. "Shit! Regulus!"

He darted back, trying to find the trail again, but as his gaze swept the grass, he saw only up-jutting blades. Even his own foot prints were somehow gone. Out of sight, out of mind, out of existence? So, Sirius thought, if stuff happens because you want it, then I should just be able to think the footprints back. Except, would he get the real things or just random trails? He couldn't trust it wouldn't be the latter, leading him off like a Hinkypunk, until he never found his brother again.

"REGULUS!"

There was no answer. He wasn't really expecting one. Nothing scurried away at his yell. For all the greenery, there seemed to be no life around him. Just singing books he might have owned once and outline people drifting around as if he wasn't real.

"Which I am," Sirius muttered. "I'm Sirius Black, and don't you forget it."

He had a vague idea of the direction he had been heading in before, and he went that way, moving as fast as he dared, sweeping his gaze from one side to the other as he went, looking for anything, any little thing that might be a clue.

(If you'd paid this much attention when he was alive, the voice in his head said, he might not be dead now.)

Snuffles could have found Regulus by now. Padfoot could have. Whatever name you wanted to use, Sirius really wasn't all that fussed. But with his wand so weird... What he loved about being human was knowing he could escape into dog whenever he wanted, but what he loved about being a dog was knowing he could be human again, just as easily. It was harder to think as Padfoot, or, at least, to think in the same way. Nature was as much an instrument of shape as of intent. When he was a dog, he thought doggy thoughts.

Imagining being that, only that, stuck in that, feeling all that was him slipping away, Sirius shuddered. Azkaban had been bad, horrible, terrible, but it was just a place, and places could be left. You couldn't leave your own brain. Not in any sane sense.

There was a welcome flash in the distance, distracting him from his melancholy, but he didn't have to get much closer to realise it was another of those not-there figures. This one seemed to be wearing armour, lunging here and there with a glittering sword that was almost familiar. Still, he passed it by, keeping a clear distance, circling slowly to get back to his previous course.

If the trees are here because I want them to be, Sirius wondered, are the people too? Are these people I've forgotten, until there's only half-impressions? Was Regulus ever here at all?  
("You know what your problem is, Moony?" Sirius laughed, draping an arm over too bony shoulders. "You spend too much time thinking about 'what if' instead of 'what is'. You're never going to get laid if you stay hung up on your furry little problem. You've gotta seize the moment! Are you a Gryffindor or not?"

Remus smiled his small smile. "Are you offering, Padfoot?"

Sirius considered him for a moment, and then just grinned, planting a wet smack of a kiss on Remus's temple before stealing his quill and dodging away across the field, laughing and whooping as Remus gave chase.)  
It had been a good day, and the memory of it rose in him, a humming, singing thing (or was that the damn book again?) and he felt his stride lengthen, a grin seize him. Laughter bubbled up and he let it out, breaking into an easy loping run. It felt effortless, easy like he was seventeen again, like a wolfishly grinning Remus was on his tail, threatening all manner of bizarre punishments. He ignored the urge to look back, not sure if he was more worried that there would be nothing or that Remus would really be there, and let himself run. Just run.

He didn't need to be Padfoot to enjoy this, legs pumping, arms and heart, blood racing. This was living, damn it. This was what Albus was too old to get, what Harry was too burdened to understand: the sheer thrill of freedom! He laughed again, breathless and wild and plunged forward into the breeze that had sprung up, sweeping the grass and trees back around him.

The air was thick with the scent of honeysuckle and as the stars swirled away the sun came blazing up over the horizon, sending his shadow racing ahead of him, pointing the way. Cheering, he followed after. The grass grew longer around him, wilder. Weeds sprouted between the blades, plantain and pigweed and silver rushes, moomin-swells and peacock thistles and thunder-reeds that boomed out as he passed.

Soon the grasses gave way to bushes, thickening around him, sending him first this way and then that as he dodged between them without slowing. Thicker still, then, and taller too, until suddenly he was running between long hedges that made him thick of the Triwizard Tournament and Harry, poor Harry, and the rat bastard too. As the hedges got thicker, he got slower, and slower, until finally he was dragging his feet through the green shade of bushes higher than his head.

Coming to a T-junction and seeing no difference between the paths, he took the left, vaguely remembering something about this. Weren't you supposed to just keep turning the same way, and if you followed the walls you'd end up in the right place? Labyrinths were different from mazes, Sirius knew that much, but he couldn't remember why, or if you were supposed to find the exit or the centre. Perhaps the centre was the exit?

As he followed another blind curve around, he was startled by another of those almost transparent figures coming out of the green right in front of him. He stumbled backwards, catching a startled glimpse of a daisy painted on a water-can, before he fell through an unexpected hole in the hedge.

"Huh," he said.

It wasn't another pathway. It was, possibly, the centre of the maze but, if so, the centre was impossibly larger than it should have been. A few feet from where he was lying on the ground, a path of large round grey stones began. Pink pebbles separated each one and also bordered the many silvery pools that the path of stepping stones wound around in crazy, eye-hurting knots. He rolled over, clambering back to his feet (really, he was getting as clumsy as Tonks, it was hardly normal), and stepped up onto the first stone. He followed the path with his gaze, head tilting this way and that to make sense it, trying to make sense of it, until his gaze suddenly alighted on a properly solid figure in sombre robes.

"Regulus!" He cheered, running forward.

Regulus looked up at the shout, an angry scowl on his face, but it was quickly wiped away with something that might have been fear. "Sirius! Don't--"

Struck by the sudden overwhelming feeling that something really was right behind him, Sirius twisted to look. His legs, not getting the message, kept trying to go forward. He missed a stepping stone and slipped on the pebbles. Arms pin-wheeling, he went tumbling over backwards. It seemed to take a very long time to fall.

"Not again," Sirius said, or thought he did.

He hit the pond with a back-aching smash and sank into--

He was falling through cold blackness, spinning furiously as he went, and then--

It was the house again. 12 Grimmauld Place, and never had a square been so aptly named. His mother's portrait peeked out suspiciously between the cracks in her curtains. He could smell firewhiskey, hear a fire crackling.

A dream, then? It had been vivid, but also unreal. Glass lands and sudden mazes and a garden of pools and his brother, of course. Of course it had been a dream. What was Sirius thinking? He tried laughing at himself but it came out wrong and he quickly stopped. Besides, he didn't want to wake the portrait up, which didn't seem to have noticed him yet. Keeping ducked under its gaze, he made his way out into the hall, stopping at the stairs.

"I should go and check on Buckbeak," he said, and then couldn't remember why.

Had something happened to the hippogriff? He could almost see himself tending to the creature, but when had that been? Here, in the house? Before, while they were on the run? Events blurred together in his head, or splintered. It was the house. It was always the house. He could feel it pressing in on him, pushing him down, making it hard to breathe.

Sirius turned away from the stairs, meaning to go through the kitchen and out into the gardens. It was still a prison, but it was slightly better when you couldn't see the walls. Not much, but slightly. Instead, as he approached the half-open door, he heard voices. An Order meeting, perhaps? He could see Remus through the gap, his hands moving as he talked. Smiling, Sirius slipped inside, leaning back against the wall and waiting for them to notice him.

Remus was talking to Kingsley and Tonks -- who, Sirius noticed with some disquiet, was giving Remus appreciative looks -- about some Order business. Sirius didn't bother listening to the words, just letting the voices wash over him. Tonks's was bright with sharp humour, Kingsley's stentorian, Remus's soft over steel. They went back and forth, crossing each other, coming apart and together. It was almost musical. No, it was musical.

The door he'd slipped through suddenly swung wide, drawing their attention. Remus looked over with concern, smiling just a little, and said "Sirius!" and Sirius would have answered, except suddenly the book in his pocket was chiming in and, when he turned, it was to watch himself walk into the room.

"Buckbeak's not going to be able to fly for a while," the other Sirius said. He was dressed as Sirius had been, except his clothes weren't bleached out, but still brown and striped, ill-fitting his gaunt frame, and surely Sirius had never looked that old, that bedraggled? Why couldn't the others see that this was some imposter on cheap Polyjuice and knockoffs?

"I said keeping him in a bedroom was a poor idea," Kingsley said.

"What's going on?" Sirius demanded. "Can't you people see there's two of us?"

"It's not like we have a lot of choice, is it?" the other Sirius said.

"Sirius," said Remus in a quelling tone. "We were just talking about these visions of Harry's--"

"Remus!" Sirius yelled, waving at him.

"He can't hear you." Sirius swung around to find Regulus watching him from the doorway, eyes full of something Sirius refused to believe was pity. "None of them can hear or see you," Regulus continued. "I told you, it's like a pensieve. What did you think would happen when you fell in the Memory Pool?"

"I'd get wet?" Sirius said. "It'd happened so often lately, I'd assumed it was something of a theme."

Regulus blinked at him. "What are you talking about? I swear you get stranger by the moment."

He stepped between the two Sirius's, the one in brown arguing with Remus, and examined Tonks with interest.

"That can't be natural, can it?"

"Oi! That's your cousin's kid you're talking about," Sirius snapped.

Regulus threw him a look. "So?"

"So shut it, is what. If this is a memory, how come I don't remember it?" Sirius asked. "And stop waving your hands through people, it's bloody creepy."

Regulus didn't even try to look contrite. "How should I know how your brain works? That it does at all came as somewhat of a surprise."

"Who builds a garden sized pensieve anyway?" Sirius muttered. "Wandering around, falling into people's memories, can't be healthy." A thought occurred and he raised his voice to ask, "How did they even get my memories, anyway?"

"They sneak into your room at night and steal them," Regulus said. Sirius stared at him. "No, not really, you paranoid sod. 'They' who? Do you even know?"

"No," admitted Sirius, "but there's always a 'they' somewhere along the line."

Regulus sighed, throwing himself down in a handy chair. "I love this house. Father did all the spell-work himself, you know."

"Did he bollocks," Sirius said. "The house is fuck-old." Regulus pulled a face. "He might have shored a few old things up a bit, I'll give him that. Bloody useful, being unplottable, and the defences aren't bad, I suppose."

"And look at it," Regulus said, throwing an expansive arm out. "It's all gone to seed. Really, Sirius, I realise you were in Azkaban and everybody else was dead, but that's hardly an excuse, is it?"

Sirius thought that was actually a bloody good reason, and opened his mouth to say so, except at that exact instant, the fire in the kitchen hearth turned green and Severus Snape's head appeared.

"Severus," said Remus with some surprise. "Is something the matter?"

"Is that fool Black there?" Snape asked shortly.

"What do you want, Snivellus?" the other Sirius asked.

"You're still using that nickname?" Regulus laughed. "How wonderfully original of you!"

"You can't beat a classic," Sirius said. "Now, shut up, I'm trying to listen."

"Potter's gotten into something with that Umbridge woman," Snape said, "and he was babbling something about 'He's got Padfoot at the place where it's hidden', obviously the Department of Mysteries."

"You-Know-Who has been at it again, then," Kingsley sighed.

Remus went to the door and called out. When Alastor Moody stomped into view, he passed on the news.

"What did I tell you?" Moody rumbled. "Constant vigilance shall be your watchword, I said."

"Potter does everything in his power to make keeping him alive a virtual impossibility," Snape growled right back.

"You know what Albus said," said Tonks. "We can't--"

"Let me speak to Harry," the other Sirius said. "I'm coming through."

"As much as I would like to see you immediately seized by Aurors," Snape sneered, "perhaps we can stick to the less totally idiotic plans for the moment?"

Regulus laughed. "I always did like Severus."

"He thought you were a sycophantic little twit," Sirius said, and Regulus's face fell.

Snape was saying, "Potter hasn't returned from the forest. If he's convinced his beloved Padfoot is in the slightest danger--"

"He'll have gone to the Department of Mysteries," Remus said quietly.

Sirius felt a cold wave wash over him. The other Sirius didn't seem to notice it, instead asking, "Well, then! What are we waiting for?"

"You," Snape ordered, "are waiting for Albus, who is on his way to you now. I will search the forest. The rest of you--"

"We'll go to the Ministry," Kingsley agreed. 

"A couple of Aurors won't seem out of place," Moody agreed. "We can tell people we're escorting Remus to the Werewolf office if there are any problems from Fudge and his cronies; no one will question a Dark creature. No offence, Remus."

"None taken," Remus said dryly.

"Now, wait a minute," said the other Sirius. "If you think I'm staying here while my godson walks straight into You-Know-Who's trap, you're got another think coming."

"Somebody needs to stay at Headquarters to inform Albus when he arrives," Snape said thinly. "Even you should be able to see that, Black. I've wasted too much time as it is. The rest of you, go, now. I'll send word from the forest by the usual means if necessary."

Without a goodbye, his face vanished from the fire, and the flames resumed their normal colour.

"I hate that man so much," Sirius said. "I really, really do."

"He's right, though," Tonks said to the other Sirius. "You need to wait for Albus. He can bring you along after -- the Ministry don't know about Padfoot yet, even if the Death Eaters do."

"Would he bollocks," said Sirius, and the other Sirius echoed him with, "Rubbish! He'll insist I stay here, and I'm not having it. Remus--"

"Enough, Sirius," Remus said. "Someone has to tell Albus--"

"Kreacher!" yelled the other Sirius.

There was a crack and Kreacher appeared in the middle of the room, mumbling, "Filthy blood traitors in my mistresses house, you'll get what's coming."

Regulus gasped in shock. "Kreacher! What did you do to him?"

"What did I-- I didn't bloody do anything!" Sirius snapped. "He's the same evil simpering slimy bastard he always was."

Regulus bounded to his feet and, for a second, Sirius actually thought his brother was going to take a swing at him, but Regulus hands stayed at his side, though they clenched so tightly into fists that his skin went white. As if in deliberate contrast, his cheeks flushed red, and Sirius realised with something like shock that Regulus was shaking.

"What is with you and that damn House Elf?" Sirius asked. "You're acting like he was your best friend in the entire..."

"You don't know anything," Regulus said. "You always think you know everything, but you don't. Even the Dark Lord couldn't break Kreacher, but look! Look what you've done to him!"

"I was in Azkaban!" Sirius yelled. "I didn't do anything! It was probably that bloody portrait. Not even being dead could stop mum moaning!"

"You are blight on the house of Black, and I'm glad mother blasted you off the Tapestry," Regulus said, throwing himself back into his seat and crossing his arms tightly across his chest. He deliberately looked away from Sirius.

For some reason, that had actually hurt and, by the time Sirius paid attention to his surroundings again, it was to see the other Sirius leaping into the floo, leaving the two of them alone in the kitchen with the House Elf. Sirius waited for the surroundings to change, as they would in a pensieve, limited as they were to the area around one person, but nothing happened. Seconds ticked past. And then Kreacher started to chuckle, and giggle, and finally laugh loudly, rolling around on the floor and clutching himself. A smile twitched its way onto Regulus's face and spread there until Kreacher started speaking again, giggling around the words.

"Nasty, ungrateful swine of a Master, breaking my Mistress's heart, well, now you'll get yours, just like she said, yes, Mistress Narcissa, she's still a real Black, not like you, you blood traitor, and soon you'll be gone and all your Mudbloods and abominations with you, and the House will be ours again, just Kreacher and the Mistress! Thought you could hide away, thought you could throw away all her treasures and destroy all her stuff, but you told Kreacher to get out and Kreacher did, oh, yes, went to Mistress Narcissa and told the Dark Lord all about you and Harry!"

Kreacher went off again into peals of laughter that didn't stop, not even with Albus apparated into the room.

"No," said Regulus.

"That son of a bitch," Sirius said.

"Kreacher has-- He's always been loyal to the House of Black," Regulus said.

"He betrayed me!" Sirius bellowed. "He betrayed Harry!" He dove for the floo, ignoring Albus's argument with the House Elf, but he couldn't get a grip on the powder box. "Damn it! We need to get to the Ministry, warn them--"

"It's a memory," Regulus said. "You can't change anything. You can't do anything. All you get to do is watch. That's it. You have to watch."

Sirius swung back from the fireplace and grabbed Regulus's shoulders, whose eyes went wide. "Then how do we watch? The Department of Mysteries, how do we watch from there?!"

No sooner had he asked than they were suddenly whirling again through darkness. No, Sirius realised, they weren't whirling; the room was. Streaks of blue light raced around them.

"Which room?" Remus asked.

Alastor's magical eye spun around wildly in its socket, and then he pointed. "There. The Death Room!" As the room slammed to a halt around them, the doors bursting open, he ordered, "Kingsley, with me; you three, the other door," already sprinting forward with amazing sprightliness for a man with a wooden leg. Kingsley was at his heels and Tonks, Remus, and the other Sirius had already started off before Alastor finished speaking.

"Typical," said Regulus, pulling himself out of Sirius's grip and needlessly brushing himself down. "I suppose you want me to go and watch you being the hero now, do you? No wonder this is the memory you ended up in."

"I don't," started Sirius, but he did remember this, pieces of this. He had been here before. He'd seen Harry, and the Longbottom boy, and then something had happened, something bad, and important.  
("Come on, you can do better than that!")  
"Come on," Sirius insisted, grabbing Regulus's arm again.

"All right, all right! Just keep your grubby paws to yourself," Regulus snapped. He jerked his arm back, and went through the nearest of the doors.

Sirius hurried after him, and they came out into a large, square, dimly lit room, almost falling down the sudden stone steps. They hadn't been long behind the others, but in that time a massive fight had broken out between the Order members and Death Eaters. He could see his other self fighting Dolohov for a moment before Harry sprung up out of nowhere with a bellowed "Petrificus Totalus!" Across the room, Bellatrix whipped her wand at Tonks, sending her flying down the stairs.

"Tonks!" Sirius yelled, trying to run forward.

This time it was Regulus who grabbed him. "It's just a memory. You can't do anything."

Sirius pushed him off, jumping down from step to step. Half way to Tonks, he saw Lucius Malfoy threw himself at Harry and Neville, and changed direction, pulling his wand out and flicking off a "Reducto!" Light blasted from his wand with such force that he had to grab it with both hands, just to keep hold of it. Aim was impossible, but it didn't matter. The spell passed through everyone as easily as he'd walked through the transparent figures in the forest, and with less effect.

"Impedimenta!" Harry yelled, blasting Malfoy back. He crashed into the dais and Sirius looked up to see the other him was on it, duelling with his cousin Bellatrix around a stone arch with a tattered veil hanging in it. Despite the constant flash of spell light around them, it some how managed to dominate the room, both innocuous and malevolent all at once.

"I told you," Regulus said quietly as Remus leapt to Harry's defence. "You can't change anything."

Sirius ignored this, absently walking through Lucius as he climbed up onto the dais. Red light shot across him in both directions, but he ignored that too.

"And here comes Dumbledore, hurrah, hurrah," Regulus said. "There is something seriously wrong with the world when the dotty old man is the only credible wizard on either side. Oh, god, look at Bellatrix! She didn't age well. Mind you, neither did you."

This last caught Sirius's attention and he turned to look where the other Sirius and Bellatrix were still fighting, the only two left now that Dumbledore had arrived. Bellatrix's mouth was a vicious slash of red in a too pale face. The other Sirius was laughing. It wasn't a sane sound.

"Am I really like that?" Sirius asked.

"You look younger now," Regulus said. "It's--"

"Come on," yelled the other Sirius, ducking under Bellatrix's jet of red light, still laughing. "You can do better than that!"

"No!" cried Sirius, diving forward.

The second jet of light passed through him without slowing and struck the other Sirius squarely on the chest. Their eyes met and the other Sirius's widened in surprise, his body curving in a graceful arc as he sank backwards through the ragged veil hanging from the arch. Fear bloomed on his face and then it was gone, and so was the other Sirius.

There was a thick silence.

"Huh," said Regulus and Bellatrix simultaneously crowed triumphantly and Harry, Harry was sprinting towards them, screaming, "SIRIUS! SIRIUS!"

"Oh, god," Sirius said. He tried to move, but his feet were rooted to the spot. "Oh, Harry. I'm sorry, Harry."

Remus grabbed Harry, holding him back, though the boy continued to struggle and scream.

"I am so sorry," Sirius whispered.

The veil rippled slightly, pressed by some wind he couldn't feel, and a sudden wild thought rose in his head. If he gone through the veil to end up wherever he was, then surely he could just... Regulus touched his shoulder and it jarred him into movement. He lunged forward through Regulus's warning cry, grabbing for the veil. It slipped through his fingers like mist. He passed under the arch.

And hit the ground on the other side so hard he saw stars and bit his lip, drawing blood.

Sirius spat it out, crawling back to his feet, intending to go for the arch again, but the dais seemed to be spinning, everything seemed to spinning, down into darkness. As in a dream, he saw Bellatrix flee, and Harry charge after her, and Dumbledore after him, and everybody was going, going, going, gone. Alone in the black -- and how fucking typical was that? -- he was spun around and around until he was crying out from the force of it.

With a mighty splash, he was thrown up, clear of the pool, crashing down onto pink pebbles in a silver rain. A breath later, Regulus landed beside him with rather more grace.

"As I mentioned," he said quietly. "You're dead, Sirius."

"Yeah," said Sirius, but he was thinking Harry, Harry, Harry, oh, Harry...

"Sorry," said Regulus, so quiet it was barely more than a move of his lips.

They stayed like that, in silence, for a long time.

 

Chapter 4: Trains to Nowhere

With sudden force, Sirius pushed himself to his feet and began striding away up the stepping-stone path.

"Hey!" Regulus scrambled to follow him. "Wait up! Sirius!"

"No," Sirius said, lengthening his stride until Regulus had to start jogging to keep up. "I'm not having this."

"You can't just stop being dead because you're throwing a strop," Regulus said, a little breathlessly. "I tried that one myself."

"Then I'll find something else," Sirius said, starting to run himself.

"Where are you even going?" Panting, Regulus started to drop behind. "Sirius, slow down!"

"There's no time to slow down. I have to get back to Harry." Pebbles flew up whenever his boots missed the stepping stones. "I have to get back."

From behind him, Regulus yelled, "There's no way!"

Sirius skidded to a halt and swung back. "There is a way," he growled out. "They said Azkaban couldn't be escaped, and I did it. They said werewolves couldn't be helped, that kids couldn't learn the animagus transformation, that a Black could never be a true Gryffindor, and we proved them wrong every time. There is always a way."

Regulus blinked at him owlishly, at Sirius realised he had his hands fisted in his brother's robes. He forced himself to let go, absently straightening them out like he hadn't done in years.  
("You'll still talk to me when I'm Slytherin, won't you?"

"'Course I will, Reg. Houses don't stop us being brothers."

But they did, in the end, the House of Gryffindor, and of Slytherin, but mostly of Black.)  
"There's always a way," Sirius repeated, softer now. "I made a promise, you see. I said I'd always be there for Harry, and so I have to be. I have to keep this one."

"Sirius," Regulus said, hesitance in his voice, "it's not that I don't want you to go back."

Sirius gave a dry laugh at that. "I'm sure you'll be delighted to see the back of me. You could throw a party; just wish up some more cake."

"There's just no way, Sirius," Regulus said, sadly. "I'm sorry, but there's really just no way. It's not like you're visiting. You're dead. You're all the way dead. In fact, you're probably deader than most people, given your entire body went through the veil."

"You said, before, that I was different," Sirius said. "That I could use my wand when I shouldn't."

Regulus nodded. "That's probably why."

"If I'm different on that account, then maybe I'm different on all the others." When Regulus didn't respond fast enough, Sirius said, "There's a chance, isn't there? Well, isn't there?"

"I don't-- Yes. Maybe." Regulus shook his head. "I don't know."

"No," Sirius said, turning away again, "you don't."

This time though, he set off at a more sedate pace, allowing Regulus to drop into step alongside. They walked in silence for a while, Sirius doing his best to go in a straight line, although the pools started to get more and more in the way the further they went. It was odd; nothing ever seemed to move, yet every time the way looked clear, the path would somehow curve deceptively and there a pool would be. The world, it seemed, wanted him to do something. The world, Sirius thought, could shove it. He had better things to do.

"He'll blame himself," Sirius said.

"People always do," Regulus agreed. "Mother was always on about 'where did I go wrong?' whenever you came up in conversation. I mean, when you weren't there."

"When I was there, she just yelled at me," Sirius said.

"You were both equally at fault--"

Sirius laughed at him. "Don't you get bored of being wrong all the time?"

Regulus started to reply and then changed his mind and just huffed instead, aiming an annoyed kick at a passing ornamental shrub. It scuttled backwards out of reach and settled down again. Regulus grinned.

"Hey, remember Aunt Lucretia's garden, with all those giant plant pots, scuttling around to try and follow the sun or line up to be watered?"

"Will remembering it help me get back to Harry?"

"Of course not."

"Then, no," Sirius snapped.

Regulus did something which might have been a pout if he wasn't a Black, who certainly never did such a thing. "I was just making conversation."

"Well, don't."

"I'd say you grew up to be a jerk, but it's more likely that you just never bothered growing up at all," Regulus sniffed.

"Get some new material," Sirius said. Regulus looked at his robes in confusion. Sirius clarified, "Your insults have gone stale."

Regulus eyed him. "You picked up an inordinate amount of Muggle rubbish for someone who spent most of his time in the company of purebloods."

"First, say 'Muggle rubbish' again and I'll curse your bollocks off," Sirius said. "And, secondly, I had -- have! -- friends who are half-bloods and Muggleborns and Squibs and, unlike you, I can actually talk to people without them wanting to punch me in the face."

"You're not doing very well so far," Regulus sneered.

"There you go again." Sirius sighed dramatically. "It's a very sad case."

More of the ambulatory plants scuttled by. Sirius did remember Lucretia's garden, and the things that had happened there, Regulus's birthday party (a ridiculous and sombre affair alleviated by the judicious application of chocolate frogs and fizzing whizbees) and the far too amorous actions of his cousin. Who had apparently killed him.

"Bitch," muttered Sirius.

"Hey!" complained Regulus.

"Not you. Bellatrix." Sirius reconsidered. "No, actually, you as well."

"You're the only dog around here," Regulus said. "I bet you have fleas. I bet that's how you really got out of Azkaban. The Dementors were too disgusted to touch you, you mangy, flea-bitten, old--"

Sirius cuffed him, back-handed.

Regulus yelped, more in shock than pain. "You hit me!"

"And I'll do it again, too!" Sirius yelled. "Don't try and be so high and mighty with me! It's people like you-- You think you're so hard done by, don't you? When have you ever really suffered in your entire life? When have you--"

Regulus gave a wordless yell of rage and threw himself at Sirius. The plants dodged out of their as the two went rolling, Regulus throwing punches wildly and Sirius too startled to do more than block as best he could.

"Stop-- Will you stop--!" The pink pebbles stabbed at him through his clothes and Sirius swore as his head bounced against one of the stepping stones. "Reg!"

"It's Regulus, you sodding ... sodding ... dog!"

Regulus drew back to throw a punch and Sirius took advantage of the gap to grab at him and send the two of them rolling again. Only too late did the obvious consequence of this occur to him and, by then, they were already crashing into another of the Memory Pools. The black hit them, the spinning wrenched them apart, and they landed on either side of a small island of smooth rock in the centre of a black lake.

By rights, he shouldn't have been able to see much. There was a stone basin set on top of a pedestal in the middle of the island. The liquid inside gave off a misty emerald glow that reflected weakly in the perfectly still lake around them. Still, Sirius could somehow see that they were in cavern so large they had to be deep under the ground or inside a mountain. If he concentrated, he could just make out a distant beach on the far side of the water and, filling it, white, floating, bloated corpses.

Gagging, Sirius scrambled backwards from the water's edge.

"Scenic, isn't it?" Regulus asked. In the odd light, his face seemed waxy, pale and grey-white. His lips twitched, like he was trying to laugh and cry all at once. "The Dark Lord always did have rather individual tastes when it came to décor."

"What is this place?" Sirius asked. "Regulus? Whose memory is this?"

"Would you like to hear a story?" There was something wrong with Regulus's voice, just a little too high, a little too fast. "You'll like it. The ending's a killer."

The noise that slipped from him was as much sob as giggle.

"Stop it!" Sirius snapped. "Let's get out of here." He raised his voice, shouting at the distant roof. "I want out!"

Nothing happened, save that Regulus started talking.

"Once upon a time, there was a boy, a wizard who loved his family very much, who had been brought up in the proper traditions to respect his position and his abilities. Now, in those days there was a Dark Lord, a man of great strength, who promised he would bring the wizards out of hiding to rule over the Muggles and the Mudbloods and all who stood to test and destroy them."

Sirius started to speak, but Regulus just continued right over him. His gaze was fixed on Sirius, but Sirius rather thought that Regulus wasn't seeing him at all.

"The boy wanted to be loved and respected and so, with his parents blessing, he went to the Dark Lord and offered himself into the Dark Lord's service. It was grand at first, for this boy; just sixteen, and already part of something amazing. But time passed, and passed, and the boy saw that for all the Dark Lord surrounded himself with wizards of good breeding and proud histories, he did not consider any of them his peers. He enticed them with sweet words and punished them with casual cruelty and there was nothing he would not do to them, no injustice too large or too small, if it would aid his cause."

Regulus finally looked away from Sirius, turning towards the distant beach. Sirius did too, seeing a tiny speck of gold light that he realised was a lit wand.

"Still," said Regulus, "the boy believed in the cause. The cause was good, and true, and necessary, so he served still. And then one day, the Dark Lord came to him and said he required an elf. It was an honour, of course, a great honour, both for the boy, and for his elf, his old and loyal servant. 'Do whatever the Dark Lord tells you, to, Kreacher,' the boy said, 'and then come home.'"

Sirius could just make out the figure on the beach, watching as its small companion pulled a boat up out of the water by aid of a coppery chain. "Is that-- Is Voldemort coming here?"

"Kreacher did as he was told," Regulus said. "Like a good and loyal servant, he did exactly what he was told. He came home. And he told the boy how the Dark Lord had taken him to a cave and made him drink poison and left him to die. Just to test his defences, that was all. Not for the greater cause, not for all wizards, but just for himself. Do you know what a Horcrux is, Sirius?"

"No," said Sirius, but he did, he knew, he just couldn't, because no one would be that monstrous, except, yes, wasn't that what Voldemort was, a monster?

"For he so hated the idea of his own ending that he tore his soul and asunder and placed part of it in a locket marked with emblem of Slytherin," said Regulus, his voice suddenly ringing out, gaining strength from anger, "with the emblem of my House! And he took my servant and discarded him as if he was nothing!"

Regulus swung back to Sirius, his eyes glittering dangerously in the green light. "And when I knew what he had done, I knew what I had to do. While you were running around in the light, laughing and carefree, brother, I ordered Kreacher to bring me here, down into the deepest dark."

And now the boat was close enough that Sirius could see who was in it, the small, neat House Elf and the mad looking boy in black, the silver clasp of his cloak bearing the legend 'Toujours Pur'. As they watched, the other Regulus brought out a locket and handed it to Kreacher, ordering him to swap it for the one in the basin when it was empty, to take that locket and destroy it and not to tell the family. They watched Regulus conjure a cup and they watched him drink, and gag, and scream, and rage, and drink, still, despite it all.

"I saw mother crying. I saw father broken. I saw you, Sirius, laughing and mocking and calling me such terrible names. And I knew I could stop at any time, that I could stop and leave and see the light again, and I told myself I would, after just one more cup. Just one more. Until there was nothing."

They watched Kreacher swap the lockets, and then try and come back to Regulus. They watched him reach out, but the compulsion to obey took him before his fingers touched, and he vanished with a loud crack that echoed across the lake.

"And I knew no-one would know what I had done, that I was as alone as I could possibly be. All alone in the dark."

They watched Regulus crawl towards the water's edge.

"No," said Sirius, shaking his head. "Don't do that. Don't--"

"I was so thirsty. And that was the worst, you see, because once I had drunk from the lake, I came back to myself. I knew where I was, and what I had done, and what was about to happen, and I had just enough time to reach for my wand but no time to do anything--"

White hands lunged out of the water and grabbed Regulus and pulled, and he screamed, clawing at the stone to no avail as they dragged him in, surfacing again and again but never escaping their hands, screaming, always screaming, screaming a name, and Sirius was screaming too, running forward to do something, anything, but there was no lake, only black, and he could not run, only spin.

The light felt like being stabbed.

"And then I died," Regulus said quietly.

Sirius needed to be sick, rolled over, heaving, but there was nothing. The sickness was in him. He couldn't get it out. "I didn't know," he said. Pleaded. "I didn't know!"

Regulus pulled out a white handkerchief, wiped at his face, folded it neatly and put it away. "No," he said, tonelessly. "You didn't."

"I'm sorry," Sirius said.

"I brought it on myself, remember?" Regulus offered him a mirthless smile. "We all have to live with our decisions. Or die with them, as the case may be."

Sirius wanted to say that Regulus could have come to him, but it would have felt like a lie, so instead he said nothing.

Regulus stood. Sirius followed automatically, moving back a little as Regulus swept past him.

"Where are you going?" Sirius asked.

"You wanted to find a way out of this place, didn't you?" Regulus asked, not looking back.

Sirius gaped at his back, and then hurried to catch up. "I thought you said--"

Regulus gave him a withering look, and Sirius might have said something unfortunate if the transparent figure with the daisy watering can hadn't wandered through, close enough to chill.

"What is with those guys?" Sirius asked. "They look like ghosts, but they're not."

"They are," Regulus corrected. "They're what ghosts look like from this side. Neither here, nor there, lacking depth in either place. Pale shades of their former selves in every sense. Never touching anything ever again except the dead. Feeling nothing, smelling nothing, tasting nothing, forever surrounded by living people doing all those things? You'd have to be very desperate or very scared to do that. That's why, you know."

"Why what?"

"Why the Dark Lord did what he did -- made the Horcrux. He talks like he's death's master, but he's more its servant than anyone. He's more scared of dying than of anything else in the world. I wish I could have been there when he was told about the prophecy. I bet that was a fun day." A vicious grin curled across Regulus's face and then slipped away. He sighed. "I never wanted this, you know. Not any of it. I knew people would die, I just didn't think it would be people I knew."

"Yeah," said Sirius, who knew the feeling of being young and invincible, and of watching your friends fall and never get up again.

"There is one thing," Regulus said.

"What?"

"Remember the Tales?"

"I remember the one about the rabbit," Sirius said, "and the tree stump."

"I fully blame that tale in your formative years for your distasteful love of pranks," Regulus said, but he was smiling. "I was thinking more, though, of the Tale of the Three Brothers, and--"

"The Resurrection stone," they chorused.

"Not that anyone knows where it is," Regulus added.

"Bugger," said Sirius with feeling. "What does that leave, then?"

"You could always go on, to whatever happens next," Regulus said. Sirius just looked at him. "That's what I thought. Still, you may have been right, before. You are different and so there is a chance. A hope at least."  
"Really," Sirius said, sceptically.

"There's a place," Regulus said. "A sort of way-station. People pass through on their way to wherever, but some people say that, if you want it enough, the path will take you to someone who will hear your case. It," he added quickly before Sirius could reply, "it might just be a story. I don't know. I couldn't bring myself to try it before. But you're a Gryffindor. Reckless bravery is your bread and butter, right?"

Sirius said "Right" only because he could see Regulus was waiting for it. "How do we get there?"

"We walk," Regulus said, "and then we arrive. You know, you really should have read your Guide."

"Yeah, probably," Sirius said.

They walked. The pools fell behind them, or maybe it was just that the ornamental bushes came creeping in to block the view. Sirius thought for a moment he saw the ghost with the watering can sprinkling them with silvery droplets, but perhaps it was only the wind. The breeze tugged playfully at his hair and made his coat billow. Regulus pulled a cloak on, a thing of rich, dark material, fastened with the same clasp he'd had in the cave. The bright mist had come back, swirling up around their ankles.

"I think you're brave," Sirius told him.

Regulus threw him a soft smile, but he didn't say anything. The mist rose up around them, until Sirius couldn't see anything but the white. He stumbled closer to Regulus, almost taking Regulus's hand but settling instead on simply walking close enough that their shoulders bumped from time to time. On they went, into the white, until Sirius, looking up, found he was seeing not fog but a clear, domed glass ceiling. A few steps on found them in a wide open space, bright and clean, and lined with scattered seats.

"It's King's Cross," Sirius said, beaming.

Regulus frowned at it, and then at him. "It is?"

"Sure! I mean, I've never seen it so clean, but it's definitely King's Cross." Sirius laughed, delighted, and this time he really did grab Regulus's hand. "Come on!"

Tugging his brother with him, he tried to go towards the pillar he knew so well

("Nice dog, Harry!")  
but Regulus dragged his heels. Sirius turned to see what had caught Regulus's attention and froze himself. There was something under one of the seats. It glared at them, making choked, angry noises. It looked to Sirius like a child, a twisted, flayed child. Gorge rose in his throat, his sudden joy gone as swiftly as it had come. He didn't let go of Regulus.

"What is that?"

"I don't know for sure," Regulus said, "but you know what I hope? I hope that's the bit of the Dark Lord's soul from the locket I destroyed. I hope it hurts."

Sirius couldn't stand this. He tugged at Regulus again, and they went, to the pillar and then through it, out onto the familiar platform. There was a train waiting, just as he'd expected, a big, bright red engine billowing steam, and rows of wooden carriages behind it.

"Damn but I love this place," Sirius said. "The end of interminable summer and the start of Hogwarts! I could never wait!"

"That explains all the fights and pranks on the train," Regulus said dryly, slipping away from Sirius to stand on tiptoes and peer into the carriages. "All empty."

"So, this is it, then," Sirius said. "I just get on there and want someone to help me."

"Or so I've heard," Regulus agreed.

"Well, then," said Sirius. He took a deep breath and let it out. "I just wanted to say--"

"What?" asked Regulus, looking back from where he'd opened a door and was climbing onto the train.

Sirius blinked at him. "You're coming with me?"

"Yes," said Regulus simply, and went inside.

"Uh," said Sirius, thrown. "Well. Right. For Harry." He took a step forwards and then stopped, looking at his reflection in the door's window. He looked younger, he thought, his hair sleeker, thicker, his flesh more filled out, as if he had left the Azkaban years behind somewhere.

"God," said Regulus from somewhere inside, "will you stop sodding preening and got on the sodding train?"

"I really have to teach you to swear," Sirius said, doing as he was told.

Regulus had claimed a compartment, and Sirius sat next to him, both of them stretching out so they could rest their feet on the opposite seats. They were practically the same height.

"I like 'sodding'," Regulus said. "It's expressive and it's fun to say. 'Sodding!'"

Sirius snorted. "Bloody buggering bollocks."

"I told you before that I didn't want to hear about your sex life," Regulus said primly, but he laughed when Sirius elbowed him.

The train whistle went, piercingly, and the carriage shook around them. They grabbed for their seats as the train jerked and then, slowly building up speed, it puffed its way away from the platform and out of the station entirely. There was scenery, but it seemed half-hearted, sketches of trees and broad swathes of colour that somehow didn't resolve into anything in particular. It was rather like travelling between two large, amateur water colour paintings, and Sirius turned to Regulus to say this in time to catch his brother yawning.

"You can sleep if you want," Sirius said. "I'll wake you when we get, well. When we get somewhere."

Regulus looked at him for a moment. Sirius couldn't read his expression. Finally, Regulus nodded, and Sirius moved seats so that Regulus could lie across the other. Pulling his cloak off and folding it up to use as a pillow, Regulus curled up as best he could in the space, and closed his eyes. The train rocked gently around them, the wheels beating rhythmically over the singing rails.

Sirius found himself drifting. It would have been easy to fall asleep. He was suddenly exhausted, not tired, exactly, but bone weary. The seats were surprisingly comfortable, and he shifted down a little so he could lean his head against the cushions instead of the wood. What was passing for the world drifted idly by the window. It was almost idyllic.

Harry, though, he reminded himself. You have to get back for Harry.

Which lead to another thought, and he asked, "Hey, Regulus?" His brother made a sleepy noise. "Why didn't you ever, you know. Go on."

"I didn't want to go alone," Regulus mumbled. He rolled over, setting his back to Sirius and, after a moment, soft, gentle snores began to drift up.

Trying to stave off sleep himself, Sirius finally remembered the Guide in his pocket and pulled it out. When he opened it, though, the pages were still a water washed blur. Remus always had complained about the state he left books in. Sirius closed the book again. The face on the cover smiled at him, softly humming "Sirius Black".

He had had a book just like it before, he realised. Sirius couldn't understand why he hadn't remembered it before. It was so clear in his head now. There had been a face on that one too; the Tales of Beedle the Bard, unexpurgated, though written out in simple language for a child. A read-along book, it had talked him through the words when he stumbled over them, until he could finally read the whole thing in one go without a single mistake. He'd been so proud of that. His parents too. They'd still been able to talk to each other then.

No, he thought suddenly, they weren't proud of me for just reading. It was-- They were--

("Orion, look," Walburga said, nodding towards the big armchair by the fire.

Orion folded his paper down and smiled at the sight. Sirius was holding the Tales with one hand, the other arm wrapped around his brother, who was snuggled against him, looking at the book with large eyes. Both were wearing pyjamas, and Sirius's dressing gown was big enough to wrap around the two of them as they read.

"See," Sirius said, "that's Babbitty, under the stump. Can you see, Reg? And look, it says, 'She has tuh ... turned, she has turned herself into a tree!'"

"Tree," Regulus chimed in with a big smile.

"And now the stupid king is going to try and cut her down," Sirius continued, "but Babbitty is too smart for him, because she's a real witch." He realised his parents were watching him, and looked up with a smile. "Right, dad?"

"Absolutely, son," Orion agreed genially. "Absolutely right.")  
Sirius smoothed his hand across the book, before returning it to his pocket. He watched Regulus sleep for a while and then stood, removed his coat, and laid it over his brother like a blanket. Retaking his own seat, he shifted around so he could lean against the corner with one foot up on the seat and closed his eyes. Just for a moment, he thought. I'll just rest my eyes for a moment.

(white hands burst from the water, grabbing at the boy, pulling at him. His hands and feet scrambled uselessly at the smooth stone. He went under, surfaced, screaming "Sirius!" before they pulled him under, and under, and under, and)

"Sirius!"

Sirius gasped and jerked away to find Regulus shaking him. "Wh-what?"

"I think we're there," Regulus said. "We're somewhere, at least. The train stopped. Come on, Sirius!"

Sirius looked around. There was nothing outside the window, but the carriage wasn't shaking. Regulus had his cloak on again, and Sirius's coat was lying, neatly folded, on the seat next to him. He pulled it on, following Regulus out into the corridor and then to the door. There was no platform, and they had to jump down to the ground. It was flat, but oddly textured, not like the glassy floor of before, but no stone Sirius had ever seen before. It was part white and part black curl, a massive printed shape that extended under the train behind them.

It wasn't until Sirius made a mental adjustment for size and orientation that he realized his was standing on a giant capital G. "It says GROUND."

"What does?"

"The ground." Sirius waved at his feet. "It says GROUND on the ground."

"Good place for it?" Regulus offered. "Look, I think there's something over there."

They headed in that direction, crossing the R and O and finding themselves suddenly on a large H, then a T, an A, a P.

"It says PATH," Regulus said, laughing. "Look! WINDING PATH, all the way down to here."

"Not weird at all," Sirius muttered as the followed the letters to some steps, appropriately labelled, leading up to a door with DOOR written on it. "That's going to get old real quick."

The door was set in a wall, or rather what started off as the word WALL but which became, on closer inspection, the words RED BRICK repeated over and over in displaced rows. There was a small sign over a button, reading BELL. Sirius looked at Regulus, who shrugged and nodded. He pressed the button, and they both took a step back, waiting uneasily on the STEP.

A few seconds later, the DOOR swung open and a blonde woman smiled at them. She was wearing a simple cardigan and jeans and her hair fell straight to pool across her shoulders.

"Hello, Sirius," she said. "And Regulus. It's lovely to see you. I've just made some tea, if you would like some?"

Sirius and Regulus exchanged looks.

"Uh," said Sirius. "Sure? I'm sorry, but. Who are you, again?"

"Oh!" The woman laughed. "How silly of me, of course you wouldn't know. Well, I've been called lots of things, you know, but I think it would be best if you called me... the Writer. Yes, that will do." She smiled again, eyes twinkling. "Please, won't you come in?"

 

Chapter 5: Like It Really Is

They had tea.

It was good tea, strong and smoky, brewed properly from a mix of Lapsang Souchong and Russian Caravan. Sirius knew this because he'd read it; neither the cup nor the tea could entirely make up their minds about whether they were objects or words. So long as he concentrated, it was a nice china cup with a thin handle, filled with dark liquor, solid and warm in his hands. When his attention strayed, it became a CUP, the curved letters holding a bundle of smaller ones like TEA and SMOKY and DARK. Sirius tried not to notice.

Regulus's cup, he noticed, remained a cup. In fact, it was an exact replica of the cup Regulus had always drunk from since he was old enough to do so. Perhaps that was the difference. Sirius had always just drunk out of whatever was to hand, which would annoy Remus no end. Lily though, Lily had been same; as she'd always said to James, it was much more efficient to use up all the cups and then clean them all together, than to be forever doing them one at a time.

The woman, the Writer, reminded him a little of Lily, and of Remus, and of all of them, really, in some small way or other. Different too, of course. At least she hadn't turned into a big pile of words. Yet, at any rate. He gave her a suspicious look, realised Regulus was doing the same, and shifted in his chair, slouching carelessly as if he was perfectly at home. This just made Regulus sit up straighter, lips pursed, and Sirius grinned.

"Look at the two of you!" The Writer laughed, pleasantly, even indulgently. "I've always said nothing is more unnerving to the truly conventional than the unashamed misfit!" They both made noises of protest and she laughed again. "Well, this is pleasant, isn't it? Would you like some biscuits?"

"Thank you," said Regulus politely.

Sirius shook his head. "Look," he said, "not to be rude or anything, but, really, who are you?"

"I'm the Writer," she said.

"The writer of what, though, is where I was going with that," Sirius said.

"Everything."

"Everything?"

She grinned. "Everything! Well, only your books."

"You write the Guides?" Regulus asked, leaning forward a little, intent.

"Oh, no." She considered. "Although, yes. It's a bit complicated, I'm afraid, and some of it can't really be explained even on a metatextual level and once you've gone meta-meta who knows where you'll end up!"

The Writer giggled a little at their expressions. "Oh, dear me. I'm not doing this very well, am I? This is what you need Albus for, or Hermione. They're good for exposition. Very believable."

"Right," said Sirius, nodding. "What?"

"Perhaps it would make more sense if I showed you," the Writer decided, getting up. "No, no, stay there, I'll bring it down."

She slipped from the room, humming to herself. The room was nondescript in a rather literal way. The ornaments on the mantelpiece moved around and half the time there wasn't even a mantelpiece at all. There had been three chairs before the Writer left and now there were only two. His was red and high-backed. Regulus's was more of a sofa, covered in a dark green leather that couldn't possibly be dragonhide, because no-one had that sort of money to waste.

"I have no idea what's going on," Sirius admitted.

"Isn't obvious?" Regulus asked.

"Not in the least," Sirius said cheerfully.

"Haven't you ever wondered why things happen? Why history is the way it is? Where things come from in the very beginning?"

"No? Stuff just happens. People do things, which make other people do things, and then you have history. Plants grow, seasons change..." Sirius shrugged. "It is what it is."

Regulus sniffed. "Wilful lack of appreciation for history is neither smart nor interesting."

"I bet you actually took notes in History, didn't you?"

The Writer came back into the room, forestalling any reply. She was carrying a pile of paper on which was balanced a complicated looking device covered in keys marked with letters, numbers and symbols, in a way that reminded Sirius of Remus's arithmancy homework.

"This," the Writer said, "is an Underwood Five model manual typewriter. Or, anyway, a modified version, thereof." She put the pile down onto the coffee table that was now between Regulus and Sirius, and sat herself down on a small metal stool. "I write long hand, and then type it up. Well, no, actually, this is more of a description of a process than a literal thing, because we use computers these days, but I think it adds a touch of simplicity, don't you?"

She moved the typewriter off the pile of papers, giving the keys a quick, absent brush before turning it to face them. There was already a piece of paper half-wound through it.

"This is what I was working on," she explained.

Sirius and Regulus both leaned forward to read:  
Harry's feet hit solid ground; his knees buckled a little and the golden wizard's head fell with a resounding clunk to the floor. He looked around and saw that he had arrived in Dumbledore's office.  
Everything seemed to have repaired itself during the Headmaster's absence. The delicate silver instruments stood once more on the spindle-legged tables, puffing and whirring serenely. The portraits of the headmasters and headmistresses were snoozing in their frames, heads lolling back in armchairs or against the edge of the; picture. Harry looked through the window. There was a cool line of pale green along the horizon: dawn was approaching.  
The silence and the stillness, broken only by the occasional grunt or snuffle of a sleeping portrait, was unbearable to him. If his surroundings could have reflected the feelings inside him, the pictures would have been screaming in pain. He walked around the quiet, beautiful office, breathing quickly, trying not to think. But he had to think ... there was no escape ...  
It was his fault Sirius had died; it was all his fault. If he, Harry, had not been stupid enough to fall for Voldemort's trick, if he had not been so convinced that what he had seen in his dream was real, if he had only opened his mind to the possibility that Voldemort was, as Hermione had said, banking on Harry's love of playing the hero...  
"That's not right," Sirius said. "It's not his-- Wait, I don't understand: you wrote this?"

"Certainly." The Writer nodded.

"Like-- like a historian or a journalist or-- A Seer of some kind?" He knew she would shake her head before she did.

"She made it happen," Regulus said.

"In a way, yes," the Writer agreed. "Although I've always felt it's more like guiding the narrative, than creating it; shaping, instead of forming. Like seeing the statue waiting in a block of marble. The way you, Sirius, might find pranks or spells just coming to you, or the way you, Regulus, might see a picture forming on a page before you've even lifted your quill."

Regulus nodded. Sirius blinked at him. "You still draw? I thought you gave that up--"

"I stopped telling you because you wouldn't stop making fun," Regulus said.

"Oh." Sirius scratched at his neck. "Sorry." He realised he had been distracted and turned back to the Writer. "So you make things happen in a certain way?"

The Writer nodded. "Within certain limits, yes."

"Limits?"

"Oh, the usual. Plausibility, possibility, characterisation, genre conventions, culture, narrative inertia and inevitably. It sounds much more complicated than it is," she added, self-deprecatingly. "I'd hate to discourage anyone reading this from trying to write themselves."

"Reading-- someone is reading what I'm saying right now?" Sirius asked.

"That's how it works," the Writer agreed. "It's the power and provenance of fiction."

"I'm not--"

"What did you mean, before," Regulus started, "about having both written and not written the Guides?"

"You may have noticed the way the world around shapes itself to your perceptions? Of course, most people tend to see the world the way they want it to be, it's just usually not quite so literal. Your Guides are reflections of your selves, taking the familiar form of something you have long held dear. You shape them into being. That's why each one is as much different as it is similar. It's how--"

"No, no, hang on," Sirius interrupted again. "You make things happen? Things like, oh, let's say, me dying?!"

"I was ever so sad about that," the Writer said. "I cried, you know."

"Yeah?" Sirius sneered. "Well, I bloody died, so I think came off worse!"

"That's the thing, though," the Writer said. "When you're writing, you have to be ruthless. Otherwise it's not real."

"I'm so glad I got torn apart by Inferi for verisimilitude," Regulus said dryly.

"You just-- For-- Oh, come on! That's a bit fucking arbitrary!" Sirius smashed his cup down, splashed tea scalding his fingers. He swore again, pulling his wand out. "What, you were loafing around, all, la-de-dah, what shall I write, I know, I'll screw everybody's lives up, that'll be realistic! Needs a bit of grit? I'll off Sirius; he's only been in jail for a billion years!"

Trying to cast charms with his rebelling wand distracted him from his rant long enough for the Writer to say, "It wasn't arbitrary. It was necessary."

"For Harry to be abandoned?!" Sirius yelled.

The Writer just nodded. "He will grow stronger because of this. It's all part of the journey."

"Blaming himself for my death when it's your fault isn't going to make him stronger," Sirius raged, "it's going to make him hurt and lost and alone--"

"He's not alone," the Writer said sharply, "and if we wish to apportion blame, let us not forget that, brave and loyal as you are, you are also reckless and embittered and hardly the most stable of people."

"And whose fault is that?!" Sirius lunged to his feet, waving his wand at her. "Put me back! Put us both back! If you wrote us out, you can write us back in!"

"I told you," the Writer said, pityingly. "It doesn't work like that. There are forces, needs with the story. Certain lines of plot have been set since the very beginning. Certain things are necessary to arrange the future in the right place. These things have costs, and they must be paid."

"Those costs are lives!" Sirius yelled. "Real, living people, who don't deserve it!"

The Writer shook her head, sadly. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I simply can't--"

"Then I'll write it myself," Sirius snapped, lunging for the typewriter.

The Writer moved with surprising speed and strength, springing off her stool to intercept him. They grappled for a moment, Regulus yelling something in the background, but Sirius's wand was still in his hand and, without thinking, he bellowed, "Impedimenta!"

The explosion slammed Sirius and Regulus back into their chairs. Regulus's, low and on four legs, rocked hard; Sirius's weight against the high back of his sent the chair toppling backwards, taking him with it. The Writer, thrown backwards, skimmed over her stool and kept going, crashing into the sudden mantelpiece.

"Ow," Sirius managed, rubbing at his eyes and blinking rapidly, trying to get his sight back. "Bloody wand."

"Never mind the sodding wand," Regulus said. "You've killed the sodding Writer!"

"What?!" Sirius pushed himself up, half tripping, half clambering over his fallen chair. The Writer was, indeed, lying motionless on the hearth. "No, no, she's just-- She's stunned or something."

They both stared for a moment.

"Check on her," Regulus whispered.

"Right, right," muttered Sirius. He edged closer, and closer. There was no response. He reached down carefully, turning her over. Still nothing.

"Trust you to go and kill the Creator," Regulus hissed at him.

Sirius frowned. Looking around, he saw and grabbed a picture frame from the mantelpiece. He held it to the Writer's mouth. "I saw Lily do this one to James after a nasty Quidditch fall. Hang on."

Breath misted on the cool glass.

"It's okay!" Sirius let out a sigh of relief. "She's not dead, she's only sleeping."

"Unless she has concussion and is bleeding in her brain," Regulus said. "You shouldn't have moved her."

"You told me to!"

"I just said 'check'," Regulus corrected him. "'Check' doesn't mean 'move'!"

"How are you supposed to check a person without--" Sirius waved this off. "Never mind. She's fine. Anyway, she's breathing. There's more important things to do!"

"Like what?" Regulus asked. "I'm pretty sure they don't have Ministry of Law Enforcement patrols up here."

"What? No. Okay, first, accident. And secondly!" Sirius waved his hand at the table. "Magical writing thingy of ... making-things-happen-ness!"

Regulus stared at him. "Have you ever read a book in your entire life?"

"Lots. How do you think we became animagi? On second thought, don't answer that." 

Sirius bounded to the table and pulled the typewriter around. Regulus opened his mouth, clearly thought better of it, and came around to join him. Sirius carefully pulled the sheet about Harry free and set it reverently aside. He took one of the blank sheets and, with a bit of prompting from Regulus, managed to get it fed in.

"Right," Sirius said. "No problem." He stretched and then shook his hands out. "Just like explaining to McGonagall where the dung bombs came from."

"What are you going to write?" Regulus asked, watching him closely.

"Something like, 'but the veil hadn't killed him, only transported him'. Harry's in Dumbledore's office, right?" Sirius checked the sheet. "That's as good a place as any."

"But what about me?" Regulus asked. "I was dead before you. I should come back first."

"I don't think a lake full of Inferi is going to transport you anywhere," Sirius said. "Anyway, you're supposed to be dead." He winced. "No, I didn't mean--"

"I know what you meant, you selfish sod," Regulus grumbled. "Anyway, Kreacher could have come back for me--"

"You ordered him not to!"

"I only ordered him not to tell family," Regulus pointed out. "He could have told someone, and they could have told mother, and she would have sent Kreacher to get me--"

"And then what?" Sirius asked. "You just show up in the present?"

"Well--" Regulus frowned. "Oh! What if I faked my death to escape the Dark Lord and then, right, I could come along and save you from Veil, and we could both show up. Here, let me write it, you'll only make a mess of things!"

He made a grab for the keys. Sirius smacked his hands away. Regulus promptly elbowed him in the side, shoving his way in front of the typewriter. Sirius grabbed for it, and Regulus did as well.

"Let go!" Sirius yelled. "You're breaking it."

"You're breaking it!" Regulus yelled right back. "You let go!"

They both wrenched. The paper tore. The typewriter fell, knocking a dent in the table. They froze.

Nothing happened for a very long moment.

"See what you almost did," Sirius hissed.

"See what you actually did," Regulus snapped back.

They both glared at each other.

"Fine," said Sirius eventually. "I'm the oldest. I go first."

"I've been dead the longest," Regulus countered. "I go first."

They glared at each other again.

"Don't think I can't see you edging towards your wand," Regulus said.

"I was not!" said Sirius indignantly, who was. "Anyway, I can see you sneaking towards the tea pot."

"Self-defence," said Regulus primly.

"This is stupid."

"I agree."

"I'll just write us both back."

"We'll write us both back," Regulus corrected.

Sirius growled assent. They both crouched down in front of the typewriter, so close their shoulders pressed together. Sirius pulled the torn sheet out, folded it over, and absently stuck it in his pocket. Regulus slipped a new sheet in.

"Okay," said Sirius. They both stared at the blank sheet. "So. Um." His fingers hesitated over the keys. "Well, come on, you're supposed to be writing this with me."

"I know, I know," Regulus said. "Just give me a second."

A clock started ticking in the background until they both turned to glare at it, and then it scuttled away and hid behind the still over-turned chair.

"How about this," Regulus said. "Harry could go to the door of Dumbledore's office--"

"Right, right," Sirius nodded. "And he finds us outside. I can do this."

Searching the keyboard, he typed 'HARYRY WENT TO TEH DOOR' and pulled a face. "It needs a way of undoing it when you press the wrong keys."

"Let me," Regulus said, and typed, without hesitation, 'OF THE HEADMASTER'S OFFICE AND TURNED THE HANDLE. THE DOOR OP--'

The typewriter dinged angrily, the keys seizing up.

"What did you do?" Sirius asked.

"I don't know," Regulus said. "It just -- it got stuck."

"You were pressing the buttons too fast."

"I wasn't! It was typing fine!" Regulus tilted the machine, peering into it. "I think it's got caught."

"It can't be any harder to fix than my bike," Sirius said. He poked his fingers into the gap, pushing at things. "Hang on; I think there's a catch--"

The ribbon popped out of the typewriter. Regulus caught it reflexively, pulling a face when it left black marks on his fingers. Sirius managed to reset all the keys and, with a bit of working, they managed to get the ribbon back in. In the interest of maintaining their compromise, Sirius pretended not to notice Regulus wiping his hands clean on Sirius's coat. He'd just get him back later.

"My go again," Sirius said. He moved the paper around until he was typing in vaguely the right place and typed 'ENED AN'.

The typewriter dinged angrily, the keys seizing up.

"Oh, come on," Sirius whined.

"We must be doing something wrong," Regulus announced.

"You think?!" Sirius rolled his eyes.

Regulus shrugged. "Maybe there are instructions on it?"

It wasn't entirely impossible. Sirius picked the typewriter up carefully, turning it over. There was nothing on the base save for the make and model number. "No go. Still," he added thoughtfully, "that doesn't mean there aren't instructions somewhere else." 

"Wouldn't the Writer know how to, you know, write?"

"Lily always kept the little usage notes that came with potions bottles, even though she could just have brewed the things herself," Sirius said. "Some people are just like that."

"And you think the Writer is?"

"Looking is better than nothing! Stop arguing and help me," Sirius demanded. "She could wake up at any moment."

They both quickly looked at the Writer. She was still lying motionless on the hearth, chest very slightly rising and falling with her shallow, sleeping breaths.

"I'll start upstairs," Regulus said. "You look down here."

Sirius nodded, and they both stood. Regulus made for the door, while Sirius stopped to stand the chair up. The clock looked at him suspiciously. He ignored it, glancing around the room. There really wasn't anywhere in here for notes to be, no draws or anything. Well, except maybe on the Writer, but Sirius wasn't going to search an unconscious woman unless he absolutely had to. Which, as it happened, he didn't; he'd just get Regulus to do it.

Taking the opposite door to the one his brother had left by brought Sirius into a kitchen. Words ran along shapes under his gaze, settling into an old, thick, wooden table in the middle of a large room with red-brown floor tiles and walls covered in cupboards. He followed the wall around, opening each one as he got to them. Each, in turn, started out empty, and then filled in with foodstuffs, plates, pans, cutlery, or various other kitchen type things as he looked.

"If you're shaping yourself to my ideas," Sirius said out loud, "you'd think I would just find what I'm looking for right away."

He opened the next draw. It was empty.

"That was a hint!" he yelled.

The draw filled with rolling pins. He slammed it shut. In the echoing silence that followed, the cry from upstairs was just as loud.

"Regulus!" Sirius called, sprinting back through the lounge and shouldering open the other door. He took the steps up in twos and threes. "Regulus!"

He found his brother in a back room, standing by a black chair on wheels, staring at a desk. It was covered in papers and there was notable gap that the typewriter would have fitted neatly in. Sirius looked around hurriedly, but there didn't seem to be any immediate threat.

"What?" He asked. "What is it?"

"It's me," Regulus said, looking at him brokenly. "Everything is my fault. I thought it was you, but it was me. I didn't know."

Sirius frowned in confusion. "What's your fault? Did you find the instructions?"

Regulus shook his head. "Worse. Notes." He waved a hand at the desk. "Story notes. Things that have happened. Things that will happen. And I was searching through them, and I read-- I read--"

He gave up and just shoved a piece of paper at Sirius, who took it gingerly. It read:  
"Kreacher - stop, stop!" shouted Harry.  
The elf lay on the floor, panting and shivering, green mucus glistening around his snout, a bruise already blooming on his pallid forehead where he had struck himself, his eyes swollen and bloodshot and swimming in tears. Harry had never seen anything so pitiful.  
"So you brought the locket home," he said relentlessly, for he was determined to know the full story. "And you tried to destroy it?"  
"Nothing Kreacher did made any mark upon it," moaned the elf. "Kreacher tried everything, everything he knew, but nothing, nothing would work... So many powerful spells upon the casing, Kreacher was sure the way to destroy it was to get inside it, but it would not open... Kreacher punished himself, he tried again, he punished himself, he tried again. Kreacher failed to obey orders, Kreacher could not destroy the locket! And his mistress was mad with grief, because Master Regulus had disappeared and Kreacher could not tell her what had happened, no, because Master Regulus had f-f-forbidden him to tell any of the f-f-family what happened in the c-cave..."  
"So he couldn't break the locket," Sirius said.

"And it drove him mad," Regulus wailed. "I drove him mad! I should have known Voldemort wouldn't make it that easy."

"A lake of Inferi is hardly easy," Sirius said, but he might as well have been singing a Celestina Warbeck classic for all the difference it made.

"All my fault," Regulus said. "I just wanted to keep them safe. Opposing Voldemort was certain death. They couldn't know. I must have hurt them so much. And Kreacher. Oh, Kreacher."

He collapsed into the chair, burying his face in his hands.

Sirius couldn't think of a thing to say. He'd always had Remus for this bit, or Lily. Even James could talk people round. Sirius just tried jokes and silly things until they smiled. But he couldn't think. He reached out awkwardly, and touched Regulus's shoulder. It shook under his hand.

"Typical, I suppose," Regulus said, sniffling. "I never was very good at anything. Not like you. Everything always came easy to you. Friends, school, magic. I was always just the tag along. No, not even that. I couldn't even get up to Peter's level."

"Don't say that," Sirius said.

"It's true, though." Regulus looked up at him, eyes wet. "I was basically useless. The one thing I tried, I couldn't even get that right. I died as I lived, for nothing. And I hurt everybody who cared about me to do it."

"Peter reminded me of you," Sirius said. "In some small way, I think he did. But you were-- you are a much better man than he will ever be."

Regulus rubbed at his face furiously, but he didn't say anything. Sirius reached out and pulled at the chair, turning it to face him.

"Look at me. Come on, Regulus. You-- You were made to do it," Sirius said, waving a hand at the pages. "It's here on the page, that's why."

Regulus shook his head. "What difference does that make? Maybe I did it because it's written, maybe it's written because I did it. How are we supposed to tell? All I know is that it felt like my decision. It feels like my decision. I had a choice to make, and I made it, and I screwed everything up, just like always."

"You didn't," Sirius insisted. Regulus shook his head. "You didn't," Sirius repeated. "You think I didn't make mistakes? I made the worst mistake in the world. I got my best friend killed. But his son, Regulus, his son-- Harry is going to save us all. And he's going to save us because he knows about the locket now. Didn't you read this?"

He waved the page at Regulus.

"Of course I read it," Regulus sniffed. "Kreacher is--"

"Kreacher is talking to Harry! Because he's not, not family," Sirius said slowly, "and because, now I'm dead, Kreacher belongs to Harry, so he can be ordered. Oh."

"That's not--" Regulus shook his head. "There were other ways. You said it. There is always a way."

"It's easy in hindsight," Sirius said. "All those years in Azkaban, I kept telling myself all the ways I could have fixed it. But I did what I did because I thought it was right. I did it to protect my friends, and my family. And so did you, Regulus. So either we're both useless, and I absolutely, totally refuse to agree to that point, or you, and me, are brave men who did their very best for everyone they could."

Regulus sniffed again, but he looked at Sirius with a sort of hope in his eyes.

"You're not useless," Sirius assured him, pulling him into a hug. Holding Regulus tight, he pressed a kiss against his hair, and said, "You're my brother."

Wrapping his arms around Sirius, Regulus sobbed against his shoulder.

A happy clap finally broke them apart. The Writer was standing in the doorway, smiling. "That's so cute! I love a happy reunion."

"I thought you were unconscious," Sirius said, moving protectively in front of his brother while Regulus wiped his face.

"I was faking," the Writer cheerfully admitted. "It was more dramatic, don't you think?" They stared at her. "Oh, well, everyone's a critic."

"Why?" Regulus asked. "Why didn't the typewriter work for us?"

"It did," the Writer said. "But you were trying to make it do something that would have derailed the story. There's only so far you can push things, you know, before everything breaks down."

"So there really is no way back," Sirius said.

"Oh, I didn't say that." She held up a quelling hand. "I can't put you back in the story, not alive. Your deaths are part of events now. Everything builds on them. Without a strong foundation, the whole thing will crumble. But! Before you interrupt me, Sirius."

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"The story can be bent, just a little. One last goodbye each, that I can give you -- and that's all I can give you. But," she added, "it's more than most people get."

"Kreacher," said Regulus.

"Harry," said Sirius.

The Writer smiled. "That's what I thought you'd say." She pulled the typewriter out of nowhere and set it on the desk. "Might I have my chair back?"

Regulus nodded, standing, and she sat in his place.

"Now then." The Writer threaded a sheet of paper into the typewriter. "I think it goes like this..."

 

Chapter 6: Goodbyee

(The stone turned over, once, twice, three times.)

Sirius found himself walking in the forest. His friends were all with him. He grinned at Remus and Remus grinned back, and Lily too, and James. Sirius stuck his hands in his pockets, moving with them in an easy, graceful lope, unable to stop grinning. They came to Harry, all of them, and surrounded him, knowing what he was going to, and what he came from.

"We are," James told Harry, "so proud of you."

"Does it hurt?" Harry asked.

"Dying? Not all." Sirius laughed. "Quicker and easier than falling asleep."

"And he will want it to be quick. He wants it over," Remus said.

"I didn’t want you to die," Harry told them, looking from face to face. "Any of you. I’m sorry--"

It was okay. Sirius understood. Things were as they were, because that was how they had to be. Everything had been brought together for this moment.

"You'll stay with me?" Harry asked.

"Until the very end," said James.

"They won’t be able to see you?"

"We are part of you," Sirius assured him. They were. They would always be. Invisible, but there, with him. Each in turn had had their part in making him, and Sirius could not have been any more proud of what this man, his godson, their Harry had become.

They walked together until the end and, at the edge of Voldemort's camp, just before Harry dropped the stone, Sirius whispered, "Goodbye."

Regulus came to him, standing at his shoulder, and they both watched in silence until Voldemort's curse laid Harry low. Regulus gripped Sirius's arm tight.

"He will be well," he whispered.

"Yeah," said Sirius. "He will. Everything will."

As Narcissa leaned over Harry, they turned away.

(The stone turned over, once, twice, three times.)

It was impossibly hot in the kitchens. Sirius wondered quite how the stone's reach could come this far, or how he could be here, now, when he was also in the forest, walking with Harry, and then he deliberately thought 'It's magic, of course' and tried not to question it. They didn't need the whole thing falling apart because of a last minute continuity error, thank you very much.

"Kreacher," said Regulus, smiling sadly.

The house elf froze, clutching at the fake locket that hung around his neck.

"Look at me, Kreacher," said Regulus gently.

Slowly, Kreacher turned round. His eyes went huge, and he made a little rasping noise.

"Hello, Kreacher," Regulus said. "It's me."

"Master Regulus," Kreacher said. "You're--" He stuttered something that dissolved into sobs. "Kreacher failed you, Master!"

"You didn't," Regulus told him. "You are a good elf. You are a loyal and most trusted servant, and I could never have asked for better. I wanted you to know that."

"Oh, thank you!" Kreacher threw himself at Regulus's feet, sobbing. "Thank you, Master!" There were more words after that, but they were lost under the crying. Regulus tried to pat the elf but, although they were more solid than ghosts, they were only as strong as memory.

Sirius wondered if he should say something. An apology of some sort was probably in order. Still, he didn't want to ruin the moment. He hung back, waving away a house elf that offered him some pumpkin juice, rather surprised that they all could see him. Someone really should have studied House Elf magic more closely. He realised that Regulus was looking at him, and looked quizzically back.

"Can you do one last thing for me?" Regulus asked Kreacher.

Sirius frowned. That hadn't been in the original plan.

"Anything, Master Regulus," Kreacher said. "Anything!"

Regulus asked, "You know Harry Potter?"

"The Master, yes," Kreacher said, nodding feverishly.

"I want you to keep him safe, okay?"

"Of course," said Kreacher indignantly. "Kreacher will see to it. Master Regulus will be proud."

"I am," Regulus assured him, standing. "I am very proud of you."

Kreacher beamed and then suddenly turned and leapt up onto a table, grabbing up a cleaver. "Friends!" he cried. "Fellow Elves! Our Masters are under attack! Will we stand by while they fall? No!" 

There was an answering chorus from the other elfs. They started grabbing up knives. Sirius stared in bemusement. Regulus started to chuckle.

"We will stand up to them! We will leave no leg unstabbed, no ankle unchopped! To war," Kreacher cried. "To war! In the name of brave Master Regulus, against the Dark Lord, to war!"

Cheering and yelling, the House Elves poured out from the kitchen with Kreacher at their head, the locket bouncing wildly, and were gone.

"Blimey," said Sirius. "Mad, that one."

"Sodding brilliant," said Regulus. "Did you see that? Sodding brilliant!"

"Yep." Sirius grinned. "You still need to bloody learn to fucking swear, though."

(The stone fell to the ground.)

"That was a turn up for the books," the Writer said. "No pun intended. Still, it worked in the end, so I'll give it to you. Well done, gentlemen. You were just instrumental in ending the Second Voldemort War and issuing in decades of unprecedented peace and tranquillity, probably."

Sirius eyed her. "You were doing quite well up until the probably."

"I'm not really sure," the Writer admitted.

"You should stick an epilogue on," Regulus said. "Show them with their families. Family is important."

Sirius pulled a face. "A bit twee, isn't it? I wouldn't. I'd end it with a joke. Maybe a prank."

Regulus rolled his eyes. "As long as everybody knows all is well, it hardly matters."

"It matters to me," Sirius muttered. He noticed a pot of pens on the desk, and idly helped himself to one.

"I suppose it's goodbye, then," the Writer said, in a pointed sort of way, though she smiled with it.

"What happens now?" Regulus asked, uncertain.

"You go on," the Writer said to him, and to Sirius, "and you go on."

"We go on," Sirius corrected. "Together, to ... whatever lies there." He gave her an expectant look.

The Writer smiled. "I can't tell you that. No one can. But I will tell you this: we do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: the power to imagine better."

"It will be better," Sirius agreed.

"Families," Regulus added. "I'm just saying."

"Only if they name one of the kids after me," Sirius said, leading Regulus towards the door. "Come on, Reg. Goodbye."

"It's-- Oh, never mind," Regulus said. "Goodbye, Ms Writer."

"Goodbye," she said, "and good luck."

They took the stairs down and made their way out of the front door. On the front step, Regulus asked, "Where are we going?"

"On!" said Sirius, laughing.

"I meant in specific," Regulus complained.

"In specific," said Sirius, digging in his pockets, "I bet if we go down there, there'll be a train on the tracks. And we'll get on that, and see where it goes."

"Okay." Regulus frowned at him. "What are you doing?"

"Well, I was thinking," Sirius said. "See, I have this sheet of paper from the typewriter thing. And I have this pen -- it's a Muggle thing, a sort of self-inking quill -- and it occurs to me that, if the story is almost over, we could sneak in one last thing."

Regulus eyed him. "Like a joke. Or a prank."

"Exactly!" Sirius beamed at him.

"And something about family," Regulus said thoughtfully.

This time, Sirius eyed him. "What did you have in mind?" Regulus just smiled. "What, Reg? Regul

 

_us."_

_And that's all there is, dear Reader. You've reached the end of the show, the coda of the story, the epilogue and the goodbye, or at least the au revoir, because you never can tell. The whispers have faded behind the veil and now we must suggest you leave, tout suite, before you get clobbered by the Obliviators. Don't worry, you can nip out the back. Old Croaker, the department head, he likes to sneak out for a quick pipe every now and then. Terrible, isn't it?_

_So off you go! Have fun! Tell people, if you want, or don't. It's up to you. It might be written, but you still have a choice. Just imagine. Oh, but, before you do, take a quick look around the back of that archway. What's that, dear Reader? Some sodding bugger's only gone and painted "SB + RB were here" on the bloody veil? Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear._

_We can't think how that happened._


End file.
